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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Judy Boss, Omaha, NE + + + + + +THE RESCUE + +A ROMANCE OF THE SHALLOWS + +BY +JOSEPH CONRAD + + +'Allas!' quod she, 'that ever this sholde happe! +For wende I never, by possibilitee, +That swich a monstre or merveille mighte be!' + --THE FRANKELEYN'S TALE + + +TO +FREDERIC COURTLAND PENFIELD +LAST AMBASSADOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF +AMERICA TO THE LATE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE, THIS +OLD TIME TALE IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED +IN MEMORY OF THE RESCUE OF CERTAIN +DISTRESSED TRAVELLERS EFFECTED BY HIM +IN THE WORLD'S GREAT STORM OF THE YEAR 1914 + + + + +AUTHOR'S NOTE + +Of the three long novels of mine which suffered an interruption, +"The Rescue" was the one that had to wait the longest for the +good pleasure of the Fates. I am betraying no secret when I state +here that it had to wait precisely for twenty years. I laid it +aside at the end of the summer of 1898 and it was about the end +of the summer of 1918 that I took it up again with the firm +determination to see the end of it and helped by the sudden +feeling that I might be equal to the task. + +This does not mean that I turned to it with elation. I was well +aware and perhaps even too much aware of the dangers of such an +adventure. The amazingly sympathetic kindness which men of +various temperaments, diverse views and different literary tastes +have been for years displaying towards my work has done much for +me, has done all--except giving me that over-weening +self-confidence which may assist an adventurer sometimes but in +the long run ends by leading him to the gallows. + +As the characteristic I want most to impress upon these short +Author's Notes prepared for my first Collected Edition is that of +absolute frankness, I hasten to declare that I founded my hopes +not on my supposed merits but on the continued goodwill of my +readers. I may say at once that my hopes have been justified out +of all proportion to my deserts. I met with the most considerate, +most delicately expressed criticism free from all antagonism and +in its conclusions showing an insight which in itself could not +fail to move me deeply, but was associated also with enough +commendation to make me feel rich beyond the dreams of avarice--I +mean an artist's avarice which seeks its treasure in the hearts +of men and women. + +No! Whatever the preliminary anxieties might have been this +adventure was not to end in sorrow. Once more Fortune favoured +audacity; and yet I have never forgotten the jocular translation +of Audaces fortuna juvat offered to me by my tutor when I was a +small boy: "The Audacious get bitten." However he took care to +mention that there were various kinds of audacity. Oh, there are, +there are! . . . There is, for instance, the kind of audacity +almost indistinguishable from impudence. . . . I must believe +that in this case I have not been impudent for I am not conscious +of having been bitten. + +The truth is that when "The Rescue" was laid aside it was not +laid aside in despair. Several reasons contributed to this +abandonment and, no doubt, the first of them was the growing +sense of general difficulty in the handling of the subject. The +contents and the course of the story I had clearly in my mind. +But as to the way of presenting the facts, and perhaps in a +certain measure as to the nature of the facts themselves, I had +many doubts. I mean the telling, representative facts, helpful to +carry on the idea, and, at the same time, of such a nature as not +to demand an elaborate creation of the atmosphere to the +detriment of the action. I did not see how I could avoid becoming +wearisome in the presentation of detail and in the pursuit of +clearness. I saw the action plainly enough. What I had lost for +the moment was the sense of the proper formula of expression, the +only formula that would suit. This, of course, weakened my +confidence in the intrinsic worth and in the possible interest of +the story--that is in my invention. But I suspect that all the +trouble was, in reality, the doubt of my prose, the doubt of its +adequacy, of its power to master both the colours and the shades. + +It is difficult to describe, exactly as I remember it, the +complex state of my feelings; but those of my readers who take an +interest in artistic perplexities will understand me best when I +point out that I dropped "The Rescue" not to give myself up to +idleness, regrets, or dreaming, but to begin "The Nigger of the +'Narcissus'" and to go on with it without hesitation and without +a pause. A comparison of any page of "The Rescue" with any page +of "The Nigger" will furnish an ocular demonstration of the +nature and the inward meaning of this first crisis of my writing +life. For it was a crisis undoubtedly. The laying aside of a work +so far advanced was a very awful decision to take. It was wrung +from me by a sudden conviction that THERE only was the road of +salvation, the clear way out for an uneasy conscience. The +finishing of "The Nigger" brought to my troubled mind the +comforting sense of an accomplished task, and the first +consciousness of a certain sort of mastery which could accomplish +something with the aid of propitious stars. Why I did not return +to "The Rescue" at once then, was not for the reason that I had +grown afraid of it. Being able now to assume a firm attitude I +said to myself deliberately: "That thing can wait." At the same +time I was just as certain in my mind that "Youth," a story which +I had then, so to speak, on the tip of my pen, could NOT wait. +Neither could "Heart of Darkness" be put off; for the practical +reason that Mr. Wm. Blackwood having requested me to write +something for the No. M of his magazine I had to stir up at once +the subject of that tale which had been long lying quiescent in +my mind, because, obviously, the venerable Maga at her +patriarchal age of 1000 numbers could not be kept waiting. Then +"Lord Jim," with about seventeen pages already written at odd +times, put in his claim which was irresistible. Thus every stroke +of the pen was taking me further away from the abandoned +"Rescue," not without some compunction on my part but with a +gradually diminishing resistance; till at last I let myself go as +if recognising a superior influence against which it was useless +to contend. + +The years passed and the pages grew in number, and the long +reveries of which they were the outcome stretched wide between me +and the deserted "Rescue" like the smooth hazy spaces of a dreamy +sea. Yet I never actually lost sight of that dark speck in the +misty distance. It had grown very small but it asserted itself +with the appeal of old associations. It seemed to me that it +would be a base thing for me to slip out of the world leaving it +out there all alone, waiting for its fate--that would never come? + +Sentiment, pure sentiment as you see, prompted me in the last +instance to face the pains and hazards of that return. As I moved +slowly towards the abandoned body of the tale it loomed up big +amongst the glittering shallows of the coast, lonely but not +forbidding. There was nothing about it of a grim derelict. It had +an air of expectant life. One after another I made out the +familiar faces watching my approach with faint smiles of amused +recognition. They had known well enough that I was bound to come +back to them. But their eyes met mine seriously as was only to be +expected since I, myself, felt very serious as I stood amongst +them again after years of absence. At once, without wasting +words, we went to work together on our renewed life; and every +moment I felt more strongly that They Who had Waited bore no +grudge to the man who however widely he may have wandered at +times had played truant only once in his life. + +1920. J. C. + + + + +CONTENTS + +PART I. THE MAN AND THE BRIG + +PART II. THE SHORE OF REFUGE + +PART III. THE CAPTURE + +PART IV. THE GIFT OF THE SHALLOWS + +PART V. THE POINT OF HONOUR AND THE POINT OF PASSION + +PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH + + + + +PART I. THE MAN AND THE BRIG + +The shallow sea that foams and murmurs on the shores of the +thousand islands, big and little, which make up the Malay +Archipelago has been for centuries the scene of adventurous +undertakings. The vices and the virtues of four nations have been +displayed in the conquest of that region that even to this day +has not been robbed of all the mystery and romance of its +past--and the race of men who had fought against the Portuguese, +the Spaniards, the Dutch and the English, has not been changed by +the unavoidable defeat. They have kept to this day their love of +liberty, their fanatical devotion to their chiefs, their blind +fidelity in friendship and hate--all their lawful and unlawful +instincts. Their country of land and water--for the sea was as +much their country as the earth of their islands--has fallen a +prey to the western race--the reward of superior strength if not +of superior virtue. To-morrow the advancing civilization will +obliterate the marks of a long struggle in the accomplishment of +its inevitable victory. + +The adventurers who began that struggle have left no descendants. +The ideas of the world changed too quickly for that. But even far +into the present century they have had successors. Almost in our +own day we have seen one of them--a true adventurer in his +devotion to his impulse--a man of high mind and of pure heart, +lay the foundation of a flourishing state on the ideas of pity +and justice. He recognized chivalrously the claims of the +conquered; he was a disinterested adventurer, and the reward of +his noble instincts is in the veneration with which a strange and +faithful race cherish his memory. + +Misunderstood and traduced in life, the glory of his achievement +has vindicated the purity of his motives. He belongs to history. +But there were others--obscure adventurers who had not his +advantages of birth, position, and intelligence; who had only his +sympathy with the people of forests and sea he understood and +loved so well. They can not be said to be forgotten since they +have not been known at all. They were lost in the common crowd of +seamen-traders of the Archipelago, and if they emerged from their +obscurity it was only to be condemned as law-breakers. Their +lives were thrown away for a cause that had no right to exist in +the face of an irresistible and orderly progress-- their +thoughtless lives guided by a simple feeling. + +But the wasted lives, for the few who know, have tinged with +romance the region of shallow waters and forest-clad islands, +that lies far east, and still mysterious between the deep waters +of two oceans. + + +I + +Out of the level blue of a shallow sea Carimata raises a lofty +barrenness of grey and yellow tints, the drab eminence of its +arid heights. Separated by a narrow strip of water, Suroeton, to +the west, shows a curved and ridged outline resembling the +backbone of a stooping giant. And to the eastward a troop of +insignificant islets stand effaced, indistinct, with vague +features that seem to melt into the gathering shadows. The night +following from the eastward the retreat of the setting sun +advanced slowly, swallowing the land and the sea; the land +broken, tormented and abrupt; the sea smooth and inviting with +its easy polish of continuous surface to wanderings facile and +endless. + +There was no wind, and a small brig that had lain all the +afternoon a few miles to the northward and westward of Carimata +had hardly altered its position half a mile during all these +hours. The calm was absolute, a dead, flat calm, the stillness of +a dead sea and of a dead atmosphere. As far as the eye could +reach there was nothing but an impressive immobility. Nothing +moved on earth, on the waters, and above them in the unbroken +lustre of the sky. On the unruffled surface of the straits the +brig floated tranquil and upright as if bolted solidly, keel to +keel, with its own image reflected in the unframed and immense +mirror of the sea. To the south and east the double islands +watched silently the double ship that seemed fixed amongst them +forever, a hopeless captive of the calm, a helpless prisoner of +the shallow sea. + +Since midday, when the light and capricious airs of these seas +had abandoned the little brig to its lingering fate, her head had +swung slowly to the westward and the end of her slender and +polished jib-boom, projecting boldly beyond the graceful curve of +the bow, pointed at the setting sun, like a spear poised high in +the hand of an enemy. Right aft by the wheel the Malay +quartermaster stood with his bare, brown feet firmly planted on +the wheel-grating, and holding the spokes at right angles, in a +solid grasp, as though the ship had been running before a gale. +He stood there perfectly motionless, as if petrified but ready to +tend the helm as soon as fate would permit the brig to gather way +through the oily sea. + +The only other human being then visible on the brig's deck was +the person in charge: a white man of low stature, thick-set, with +shaven cheeks, a grizzled moustache, and a face tinted a scarlet +hue by the burning suns and by the sharp salt breezes of the +seas. He had thrown off his light jacket, and clad only in white +trousers and a thin cotton singlet, with his stout arms crossed +on his breast--upon which they showed like two thick lumps of raw +flesh--he prowled about from side to side of the half-poop. On +his bare feet he wore a pair of straw sandals, and his head was +protected by an enormous pith hat--once white but now very +dirty--which gave to the whole man the aspect of a phenomenal and +animated mushroom. At times he would interrupt his uneasy +shuffle athwart the break of the poop, and stand motionless with +a vague gaze fixed on the image of the brig in the calm water. He +could also see down there his own head and shoulders leaning out +over the rail and he would stand long, as if interested by his +own features, and mutter vague curses on the calm which lay upon +the ship like an immovable burden, immense and burning. + +At last, he sighed profoundly, nerved himself for a great effort, +and making a start away from the rail managed to drag his +slippers as far as the binnacle. There he stopped again, +exhausted and bored. From under the lifted glass panes of the +cabin skylight near by came the feeble chirp of a canary, which +appeared to give him some satisfaction. He listened, smiled +faintly muttered "Dicky, poor Dick--" and fell back into the +immense silence of the world. His eyes closed, his head hung low +over the hot brass of the binnacle top. Suddenly he stood up with +a jerk and said sharply in a hoarse voice: + +"You've been sleeping--you. Shift the helm. She has got stern way +on her." + +The Malay, without the least flinch of feature or pose, as if he +had been an inanimate object called suddenly into life by some +hidden magic of the words, spun the wheel rapidly, letting the +spokes pass through his hands; and when the motion had stopped +with a grinding noise, caught hold again and held on grimly. +After a while, however, he turned his head slowly over his +shoulder, glanced at the sea, and said in an obstinate tone: + +"No catch wind--no get way." + +"No catch--no catch--that's all you know about it," growled the +red-faced seaman. "By and by catch Ali--" he went on with sudden +condescension. "By and by catch, and then the helm will be the +right way. See?" + +The stolid seacannie appeared to see, and for that matter to +hear, nothing. The white man looked at the impassive Malay with +disgust, then glanced around the horizon--then again at the +helmsman and ordered curtly: + +"Shift the helm back again. Don't you feel the air from aft? You +are like a dummy standing there." + +The Malay revolved the spokes again with disdainful obedience, +and the red-faced man was moving forward grunting to himself, +when through the open skylight the hail "On deck there!" arrested +him short, attentive, and with a sudden change to amiability in +the expression of his face. + +"Yes, sir," he said, bending his ear toward the opening. "What's +the matter up there?" asked a deep voice from below. + +The red-faced man in a tone of surprise said: + +"Sir?" + +"I hear that rudder grinding hard up and hard down. What are you +up to, Shaw? Any wind?" + +"Ye-es," drawled Shaw, putting his head down the skylight and +speaking into the gloom of the cabin. "I thought there was a +light air, and--but it's gone now. Not a breath anywhere under +the heavens." + +He withdrew his head and waited a while by the skylight, but +heard only the chirping of the indefatigable canary, a feeble +twittering that seemed to ooze through the drooping red blossoms +of geraniums growing in flower-pots under the glass panes. He +strolled away a step or two before the voice from down below +called hurriedly: + +"Hey, Shaw? Are you there?" + +"Yes, Captain Lingard," he answered, stepping back. "Have we +drifted anything this afternoon?" + +"Not an inch, sir, not an inch. We might as well have been at +anchor." + +"It's always so," said the invisible Lingard. His voice changed +its tone as he moved in the cabin, and directly afterward burst +out with a clear intonation while his head appeared above the +slide of the cabin entrance: + +"Always so! The currents don't begin till it's dark, when a man +can't see against what confounded thing he is being drifted, and +then the breeze will come. Dead on end, too, I don't doubt." + +Shaw moved his shoulders slightly. The Malay at the wheel, after +making a dive to see the time by the cabin clock through the +skylight, rang a double stroke on the small bell aft. Directly +forward, on the main deck, a shrill whistle arose long drawn, +modulated, dying away softly. The master of the brig stepped out +of the companion upon the deck of his vessel, glanced aloft at +the yards laid dead square; then, from the door-step, took a +long, lingering look round the horizon. + +He was about thirty-five, erect and supple. He moved freely, more +like a man accustomed to stride over plains and hills, than like +one who from his earliest youth had been used to counteract by +sudden swayings of his body the rise and roll of cramped decks of +small craft, tossed by the caprice of angry or playful seas. + +He wore a grey flannel shirt, and his white trousers were held by +a blue silk scarf wound tightly round his narrow waist. He had +come up only for a moment, but finding the poop shaded by the +main-topsail he remained on deck bareheaded. The light chestnut +hair curled close about his well-shaped head, and the clipped +beard glinted vividly when he passed across a narrow strip of +sunlight, as if every hair in it had been a wavy and attenuated +gold wire. His mouth was lost in the heavy moustache; his nose +was straight, short, slightly blunted at the end; a broad band of +deeper red stretched under the eyes, clung to the cheek bones. +The eyes gave the face its remarkable expression. The eyebrows, +darker than the hair, pencilled a straight line below the wide +and unwrinkled brow much whiter than the sunburnt face. The eyes, +as if glowing with the light of a hidden fire, had a red glint in +their greyness that gave a scrutinizing ardour to the steadiness +of their gaze. + +That man, once so well known, and now so completely forgotten +amongst the charming and heartless shores of the shallow sea, had +amongst his fellows the nickname of "Red-Eyed Tom." He was proud +of his luck but not of his good sense. He was proud of his brig, +of the speed of his craft, which was reckoned the swiftest +country vessel in those seas, and proud of what she represented. + +She represented a run of luck on the Victorian goldfields; his +sagacious moderation; long days of planning, of loving care in +building; the great joy of his youth, the incomparable freedom of +the seas; a perfect because a wandering home; his independence, +his love--and his anxiety. He had often heard men say that Tom +Lingard cared for nothing on earth but for his brig--and in his +thoughts he would smilingly correct the statement by adding that +he cared for nothing LIVING but the brig. + +To him she was as full of life as the great world. He felt her +live in every motion, in every roll, in every sway of her +tapering masts, of those masts whose painted trucks move forever, +to a seaman's eye, against the clouds or against the stars. To +him she was always precious--like old love; always +desirable--like a strange woman; always tender--like a mother; +always faithful --like the favourite daughter of a man's heart. + +For hours he would stand elbow on rail, his head in his hand and +listen--and listen in dreamy stillness to the cajoling and +promising whisper of the sea, that slipped past in vanishing +bubbles along the smooth black-painted sides of his craft. What +passed in such moments of thoughtful solitude through the mind of +that child of generations of fishermen from the coast of Devon, +who like most of his class was dead to the subtle voices, and +blind to the mysterious aspects of the world--the man ready for +the obvious, no matter how startling, how terrible or menacing, +yet defenceless as a child before the shadowy impulses of his own +heart; what could have been the thoughts of such a man, when once +surrendered to a dreamy mood, it is difficult to say. + +No doubt he, like most of us, would be uplifted at times by the +awakened lyrism of his heart into regions charming, empty, and +dangerous. But also, like most of us, he was unaware of his +barren journeys above the interesting cares of this earth. Yet +from these, no doubt absurd and wasted moments, there remained on +the man's daily life a tinge as that of a glowing and serene +half-light. It softened the outlines of his rugged nature; and +these moments kept close the bond between him and his brig. + +He was aware that his little vessel could give him something not +to be had from anybody or anything in the world; something +specially his own. The dependence of that solid man of bone and +muscle on that obedient thing of wood and iron, acquired from +that feeling the mysterious dignity of love. She--the craft--had +all the qualities of a living thing: speed, obedience, +trustworthiness, endurance, beauty, capacity to do and to +suffer--all but life. He--the man--was the inspirer of that thing +that to him seemed the most perfect of its kind. His will was its +will, his thought was its impulse, his breath was the breath of +its existence. He felt all this confusedly, without ever shaping +this feeling into the soundless formulas of thought. To him she +was unique and dear, this brig of three hundred and fourteen tons +register--a kingdom! + +And now, bareheaded and burly, he walked the deck of his kingdom +with a regular stride. He stepped out from the hip, swinging his +arms with the free motion of a man starting out for a +fifteen-mile walk into open country; yet at every twelfth stride +he had to turn about sharply and pace back the distance to the +taffrail. + +Shaw, with his hands stuck in his waistband, had hooked himself +with both elbows to the rail, and gazed apparently at the deck +between his feet. In reality he was contemplating a little house +with a tiny front garden, lost in a maze of riverside streets in +the east end of London. The circumstance that he had not, as yet, +been able to make the acquaintance of his son--now aged eighteen +months--worried him slightly, and was the cause of that flight of +his fancy into the murky atmosphere of his home. But it was a +placid flight followed by a quick return. In less than two +minutes he was back in the brig. "All there," as his saying was. +He was proud of being always "all there." + +He was abrupt in manner and grumpy in speech with the seamen. To +his successive captains, he was outwardly as deferential as he +knew how, and as a rule inwardly hostile--so very few seemed to +him of the "all there" kind. Of Lingard, with whom he had only +been a short time--having been picked up in Madras Roads out of a +home ship, which he had to leave after a thumping row with the +master--he generally approved, although he recognized with regret +that this man, like most others, had some absurd fads; he defined +them as "bottom-upwards notions." + +He was a man--as there were many--of no particular value to +anybody but himself, and of no account but as the chief mate of +the brig, and the only white man on board of her besides the +captain. He felt himself immeasurably superior to the Malay +seamen whom he had to handle, and treated them with lofty +toleration, notwithstanding his opinion that at a pinch those +chaps would be found emphatically "not there." + +As soon as his mind came back from his home leave, he detached +himself from the rail and, walking forward, stood by the break of +the poop, looking along the port side of the main deck. Lingard +on his own side stopped in his walk and also gazed absentmindedly +before him. In the waist of the brig, in the narrow spars that +were lashed on each side of the hatchway, he could see a group of +men squatting in a circle around a wooden tray piled up with +rice, which stood on the just swept deck. The dark-faced, +soft-eyed silent men, squatting on their hams, fed decorously +with an earnestness that did not exclude reserve. + +Of the lot, only one or two wore sarongs, the others having +submitted--at least at sea--to the indignity of European +trousers. Only two sat on the spars. One, a man with a childlike, +light yellow face, smiling with fatuous imbecility under the +wisps of straight coarse hair dyed a mahogany tint, was the +tindal of the crew--a kind of boatswain's or serang's mate. The +other, sitting beside him on the booms, was a man nearly black, +not much bigger than a large ape, and wearing on his wrinkled +face that look of comical truculence which is often +characteristic of men from the southwestern coast of Sumatra. + +This was the kassab or store-keeper, the holder of a position of +dignity and ease. The kassab was the only one of the crew taking +their evening meal who noticed the presence on deck of their +commander. He muttered something to the tindal who directly +cocked his old hat on one side, which senseless action invested +him with an altogether foolish appearance. The others heard, but +went on somnolently feeding with spidery movements of their lean +arms. + +The sun was no more than a degree or so above the horizon, and +from the heated surface of the waters a slight low mist began to +rise; a mist thin, invisible to the human eye; yet strong enough +to change the sun into a mere glowing red disc, a disc vertical +and hot, rolling down to the edge of the horizontal and +cold-looking disc of the shining sea. Then the edges touched and +the circular expanse of water took on suddenly a tint, sombre, +like a frown; deep, like the brooding meditation of evil. + +The falling sun seemed to be arrested for a moment in his descent +by the sleeping waters, while from it, to the motionless brig, +shot out on the polished and dark surface of the sea a track of +light, straight and shining, resplendent and direct; a path of +gold and crimson and purple, a path that seemed to lead dazzling +and terrible from the earth straight into heaven through the +portals of a glorious death. It faded slowly. The sea vanquished +the light. At last only a vestige of the sun remained, far off, +like a red spark floating on the water. It lingered, and all at +once--without warning--went out as if extinguished by a +treacherous hand. + +"Gone," cried Lingard, who had watched intently yet missed the +last moment. "Gone! Look at the cabin clock, Shaw!" + +"Nearly right, I think, sir. Three minutes past six." + +The helmsman struck four bells sharply. Another barefooted +seacannie glided on the far side of the poop to relieve the +wheel, and the serang of the brig came up the ladder to take +charge of the deck from Shaw. He came up to the compass, and +stood waiting silently. + +"The course is south by east when you get the wind, serang," said +Shaw, distinctly. + +"Sou' by eas'," repeated the elderly Malay with grave +earnestness. + +"Let me know when she begins to steer," added Lingard. + +"Ya, Tuan," answered the man, glancing rapidly at the sky. "Wind +coming," he muttered. + +"I think so, too," whispered Lingard as if to himself. + +The shadows were gathering rapidly round the brig. A mulatto put +his head out of the companion and called out: + +"Ready, sir." + +"Let's get a mouthful of something to eat, Shaw," said Lingard. +"I say, just take a look around before coming below. It will be +dark when we come up again." + +"Certainly, sir," said Shaw, taking up a long glass and putting +it to his eyes. "Blessed thing," he went on in snatches while he +worked the tubes in and out, "I can't--never somehow--Ah! I've +got it right at last!" + +He revolved slowly on his heels, keeping the end of the tube on +the sky-line. Then he shut the instrument with a click, and said +decisively: + +"Nothing in sight, sir." + +He followed his captain down below rubbing his hands cheerfully. + +For a good while there was no sound on the poop of the brig. Then +the seacannie at the wheel spoke dreamily: + +"Did the malim say there was no one on the sea?" + +"Yes," grunted the serang without looking at the man behind him. + +"Between the islands there was a boat," pronounced the man very +softly. + +The serang, his hands behind his back, his feet slightly apart, +stood very straight and stiff by the side of the compass stand. +His face, now hardly visible, was as inexpressive as the door of +a safe. + +"Now, listen to me," insisted the helmsman in a gentle tone. + +The man in authority did not budge a hair's breadth. The +seacannie bent down a little from the height of the wheel +grating. + +"I saw a boat," he murmured with something of the tender +obstinacy of a lover begging for a favour. "I saw a boat, O Haji +Wasub! Ya! Haji Wasub!" + +The serang had been twice a pilgrim, and was not insensible to +the sound of his rightful title. There was a grim smile on his +face. + +"You saw a floating tree, O Sali," he said, ironically. + +"I am Sali, and my eyes are better than the bewitched brass thing +that pulls out to a great length," said the pertinacious +helmsman. "There was a boat, just clear of the easternmost +island. There was a boat, and they in her could see the ship on +the light of the west--unless they are blind men lost on the sea. +I have seen her. Have you seen her, too, O Haji Wasub?" + +"Am I a fat white man?" snapped the serang. "I was a man of the +sea before you were born, O Sali! The order is to keep silence +and mind the rudder, lest evil befall the ship." + +After these words he resumed his rigid aloofness. He stood, his +legs slightly apart, very stiff and straight, a little on one +side of the compass stand. His eyes travelled incessantly from +the illuminated card to the shadowy sails of the brig and back +again, while his body was motionless as if made of wood and built +into the ship's frame. Thus, with a forced and tense +watchfulness, Haji Wasub, serang of the brig Lightning, kept the +captain's watch unwearied and wakeful, a slave to duty. + +In half an hour after sunset the darkness had taken complete +possession of earth and heavens. The islands had melted into the +night. And on the smooth water of the Straits, the little brig +lying so still, seemed to sleep profoundly, wrapped up in a +scented mantle of star light and silence. + + + +II + +It was half-past eight o'clock before Lingard came on deck again. +Shaw--now with a coat on--trotted up and down the poop leaving +behind him a smell of tobacco smoke. An irregularly glowing spark +seemed to run by itself in the darkness before the rounded form +of his head. Above the masts of the brig the dome of the clear +heaven was full of lights that flickered, as if some mighty +breathings high up there had been swaying about the flame of the +stars. There was no sound along the brig's decks, and the heavy +shadows that lay on it had the aspect, in that silence, of secret +places concealing crouching forms that waited in perfect +stillness for some decisive event. Lingard struck a match to +light his cheroot, and his powerful face with narrowed eyes stood +out for a moment in the night and vanished suddenly. Then two +shadowy forms and two red sparks moved backward and forward on +the poop. A larger, but a paler and oval patch of light from the +compass lamps lay on the brasses of the wheel and on the breast +of the Malay standing by the helm. Lingard's voice, as if unable +altogether to master the enormous silence of the sea, sounded +muffled, very calm--without the usual deep ring in it. + +"Not much change, Shaw," he said. + +"No, sir, not much. I can just see the island--the big one--still +in the same place. It strikes me, sir, that, for calms, this here +sea is a devil of loc-ality." + +He cut "locality" in two with an emphatic pause. It was a good +word. He was pleased with himself for thinking of it. He went on +again: + +"Now--since noon, this big island--" + +"Carimata, Shaw," interrupted Lingard. + +"Aye, sir; Carimata--I mean. I must say--being a stranger +hereabouts--I haven't got the run of those--" + +He was going to say "names" but checked himself and said, +"appellations," instead, sounding every syllable lovingly. + +"Having for these last fifteen years," he continued, "sailed +regularly from London in East-Indiamen, I am more at home over +there--in the Bay." + +He pointed into the night toward the northwest and stared as if +he could see from where he stood that Bay of Bengal where--as he +affirmed--he would be so much more at home. + +"You'll soon get used--" muttered Lingard, swinging in his rapid +walk past his mate. Then he turned round, came back, and asked +sharply. + +"You said there was nothing afloat in sight before dark? Hey?" + +"Not that I could see, sir. When I took the deck again at eight, +I asked that serang whether there was anything about; and I +understood him to say there was no more as when I went below at +six. This is a lonely sea at times--ain't it, sir? Now, one would +think at this time of the year the homeward-bounders from China +would be pretty thick here." + +"Yes," said Lingard, "we have met very few ships since we left +Pedra Branca over the stern. Yes; it has been a lonely sea. But +for all that, Shaw, this sea, if lonely, is not blind. Every +island in it is an eye. And now, since our squadron has left for +the China waters--" + +He did not finish his sentence. Shaw put his hands in his +pockets, and propped his back against the sky-light, comfortably. + +"They say there is going to be a war with China," he said in a +gossiping tone, "and the French are going along with us as they +did in the Crimea five years ago. It seems to me we're getting +mighty good friends with the French. I've not much of an opinion +about that. What do you think, Captain Lingard?" + +"I have met their men-of-war in the Pacific," said Lingard, +slowly. "The ships were fine and the fellows in them were civil +enough to me--and very curious about my business," he added with +a laugh. "However, I wasn't there to make war on them. I had a +rotten old cutter then, for trade, Shaw," he went on with +animation. + +"Had you, sir?" said Shaw without any enthusiasm. "Now give me a +big ship--a ship, I say, that one may--" + +"And later on, some years ago," interrupted Lingard, "I chummed +with a French skipper in Ampanam--being the only two white men in +the whole place. He was a good fellow, and free with his red +wine. His English was difficult to understand, but he could sing +songs in his own language about ah-moor--Ah-moor means love, in +French--Shaw." + +"So it does, sir--so it does. When I was second mate of a +Sunderland barque, in forty-one, in the Mediterranean, I could +pay out their lingo as easy as you would a five-inch warp over a +ship's side--" + +"Yes, he was a proper man," pursued Lingard, meditatively, as if +for himself only. "You could not find a better fellow for company +ashore. He had an affair with a Bali girl, who one evening threw +a red blossom at him from within a doorway, as we were going +together to pay our respects to the Rajah's nephew. He was a +good-looking Frenchman, he was--but the girl belonged to the +Rajah's nephew, and it was a serious matter. The old Rajah got +angry and said the girl must die. I don't think the nephew cared +particularly to have her krissed; but the old fellow made a great +fuss and sent one of his own chief men to see the thing done +--and the girl had enemies--her own relations approved! We could +do nothing. Mind, Shaw, there was absolutely nothing else between +them but that unlucky flower which the Frenchman pinned to his +coat--and afterward, when the girl was dead, wore under his +shirt, hung round his neck in a small box. I suppose he had +nothing else to put it into." + +"Would those savages kill a woman for that?" asked Shaw, +incredulously. + +"Aye! They are pretty moral there. That was the first time in my +life I nearly went to war on my own account, Shaw. We couldn't +talk those fellows over. We couldn't bribe them, though the +Frenchman offered the best he had, and I was ready to back him to +the last dollar, to the last rag of cotton, Shaw! No use--they +were that blamed respectable. So, says the Frenchman to me: 'My +friend, if they won't take our gunpowder for a gift let us burn +it to give them lead.' I was armed as you see now; six +eight-pounders on the main deck and a long eighteen on the +forecastle--and I wanted to try 'em. You may believe me! However, +the Frenchman had nothing but a few old muskets; and the beggars +got to windward of us by fair words, till one morning a boat's +crew from the Frenchman's ship found the girl lying dead on the +beach. That put an end to our plans. She was out of her trouble +anyhow, and no reasonable man will fight for a dead woman. I was +never vengeful, Shaw, and--after all--she didn't throw that +flower at me. But it broke the Frenchman up altogether. He began +to mope, did no business, and shortly afterward sailed away. I +cleared a good many pence out of that trip, I remember." + +With these words he seemed to come to the end of his memories of +that trip. Shaw stifled a yawn. + +"Women are the cause of a lot of trouble," he said, +dispassionately. "In the Morayshire, I remember, we had once a +passenger--an old gentleman--who was telling us a yarn about them +old-time Greeks fighting for ten years about some woman. The +Turks kidnapped her, or something. Anyway, they fought in Turkey; +which I may well believe. Them Greeks and Turks were always +fighting. My father was master's mate on board one of the +three-deckers at the battle of Navarino--and that was when we +went to help those Greeks. But this affair about a woman was long +before that time." + +"I should think so," muttered Lingard, hanging over the rail, and +watching the fleeting gleams that passed deep down in the water, +along the ship's bottom. + +"Yes. Times are changed. They were unenlightened in those old +days. My grandfather was a preacher and, though my father served +in the navy, I don't hold with war. Sinful the old gentleman +called it--and I think so, too. Unless with Chinamen, or niggers, +or such people as must be kept in order and won't listen to +reason; having not sense enough to know what's good for them, +when it's explained to them by their betters--missionaries, and +such like au-tho-ri-ties. But to fight ten years. And for a +woman!" + +"I have read the tale in a book," said Lingard, speaking down +over the side as if setting his words gently afloat upon the sea. +"I have read the tale. She was very beautiful." + +"That only makes it worse, sir--if anything. You may depend on it +she was no good. Those pagan times will never come back, thank +God. Ten years of murder and unrighteousness! And for a woman! +Would anybody do it now? Would you do it, sir? Would you--" + +The sound of a bell struck sharply interrupted Shaw's discourse. +High aloft, some dry block sent out a screech, short and +lamentable, like a cry of pain. It pierced the quietness of the +night to the very core, and seemed to destroy the reserve which +it had imposed upon the tones of the two men, who spoke now +loudly. + +"Throw the cover over the binnacle," said Lingard in his duty +voice. "The thing shines like a full moon. We mustn't show more +lights than we can help, when becalmed at night so near the land. +No use in being seen if you can't see yourself--is there? Bear +that in mind, Mr. Shaw. There may be some vagabonds prying +about--" + +"I thought all this was over and done for," said Shaw, busying +himself with the cover, "since Sir Thomas Cochrane swept along +the Borneo coast with his squadron some years ago. He did a rare +lot of fighting--didn't he? We heard about it from the chaps of +the sloop Diana that was refitting in Calcutta when I was there +in the Warwick Castle. They took some king's town up a river +hereabouts. The chaps were full of it." + +"Sir Thomas did good work," answered Lingard, "but it will be a +long time before these seas are as safe as the English Channel is +in peace time. I spoke about that light more to get you in the +way of things to be attended to in these seas than for anything +else. Did you notice how few native craft we've sighted for all +these days we have been drifting about--one may say--in this +sea?" + +"I can't say I have attached any significance to the fact, sir." + +"It's a sign that something is up. Once set a rumour afloat in +these waters, and it will make its way from island to island, +without any breeze to drive it along." + +"Being myself a deep-water man sailing steadily out of home ports +nearly all my life," said Shaw with great deliberation, "I cannot +pretend to see through the peculiarities of them out-of-the-way +parts. But I can keep a lookout in an ordinary way, and I have +noticed that craft of any kind seemed scarce, for the last few +days: considering that we had land aboard of us--one side or +another--nearly every day." + +"You will get to know the peculiarities, as you call them, if you +remain any time with me," remarked Lingard, negligently. + +"I hope I shall give satisfaction, whether the time be long or +short!" said Shaw, accentuating the meaning of his words by the +distinctness of his utterance. "A man who has spent thirty-two +years of his life on saltwater can say no more. If being an +officer of home ships for the last fifteen years I don't +understand the heathen ways of them there savages, in matters of +seamanship and duty, you will find me all there, Captain +Lingard." + +"Except, judging from what you said a little while ago--except in +the matter of fighting," said Lingard, with a short laugh. + +"Fighting! I am not aware that anybody wants to fight me. I am a +peaceable man, Captain Lingard, but when put to it, I could fight +as well as any of them flat-nosed chaps we have to make shift +with, instead of a proper crew of decent Christians. Fighting!" +he went on with unexpected pugnacity of tone, "Fighting! If +anybody comes to fight me, he will find me all there, I swear!" + +"That's all right. That's all right," said Lingard, stretching +his arms above his head and wriggling his shoulders. "My word! I +do wish a breeze would come to let us get away from here. I am +rather in a hurry, Shaw." + +"Indeed, sir! Well, I never yet met a thorough seafaring man who +was not in a hurry when a con-demned spell of calm had him by the +heels. When a breeze comes . . . just listen to this, sir!" + +"I hear it," said Lingard. "Tide-rip, Shaw." + +"So I presume, sir. But what a fuss it makes. Seldom heard such +a--" + +On the sea, upon the furthest limits of vision, appeared an +advancing streak of seething foam, resembling a narrow white +ribbon, drawn rapidly along the level surface of the water by its +two ends, which were lost in the darkness. It reached the brig, +passed under, stretching out on each side; and on each side the +water became noisy, breaking into numerous and tiny wavelets, a +mimicry of an immense agitation. Yet the vessel in the midst of +this sudden and loud disturbance remained as motionless and +steady as if she had been securely moored between the stone walls +of a safe dock. In a few moments the line of foam and ripple +running swiftly north passed at once beyond sight and earshot, +leaving no trace on the unconquerable calm. + +"Now this is very curious--" began Shaw. + +Lingard made a gesture to command silence. He seemed to listen +yet, as if the wash of the ripple could have had an echo which he +expected to hear. And a man's voice that was heard forward had +something of the impersonal ring of voices thrown back from hard +and lofty cliffs upon the empty distances of the sea. It spoke in +Malay--faintly. + +"What?" hailed Shaw. "What is it?" + +Lingard put a restraining hand for a moment on his chief +officer's shoulder, and moved forward smartly. Shaw followed, +puzzled. The rapid exchange of incomprehensible words thrown +backward and forward through the shadows of the brig's main deck +from his captain to the lookout man and back again, made him feel +sadly out of it, somehow. + +Lingard had called out sharply--"What do you see?" The answer +direct and quick was--"I hear, Tuan. I hear oars." + +"Whereabouts?" + +"The night is all around us. I hear them near." + +"Port or starboard?" + +There was a short delay in answer this time. On the quarter-deck, +under the poop, bare feet shuffled. Somebody coughed. At last the +voice forward said doubtfully: + +"Kanan." + +"Call the serang, Mr. Shaw," said Lingard, calmly, "and have the +hands turned up. They are all lying about the decks. Look sharp +now. There's something near us. It's annoying to be caught like +this," he added in a vexed tone. + +He crossed over to the starboard side, and stood listening, one +hand grasping the royal back-stay, his ear turned to the sea, but +he could hear nothing from there. The quarter-deck was filled +with subdued sounds. Suddenly, a long, shrill whistle soared, +reverberated loudly amongst the flat surfaces of motionless +sails, and gradually grew faint as if the sound had escaped and +gone away, running upon the water. Haji Wasub was on deck and +ready to carry out the white man's commands. Then silence fell +again on the brig, until Shaw spoke quietly. + +"I am going forward now, sir, with the tindal. We're all at +stations." + +"Aye, Mr. Shaw. Very good. Mind they don't board you--but I can +hear nothing. Not a sound. It can't be much." + +"The fellow has been dreaming, no doubt. I have good ears, too, +and--" + +He went forward and the end of his sentence was lost in an +indistinct growl. Lingard stood attentive. One by one the three +seacannies off duty appeared on the poop and busied themselves +around a big chest that stood by the side of the cabin companion. +A rattle and clink of steel weapons turned out on the deck was +heard, but the men did not even whisper. Lingard peered steadily +into the night, then shook his head. + +"Serang!" he called, half aloud. + +The spare old man ran up the ladder so smartly that his bony feet +did not seem to touch the steps. He stood by his commander, his +hands behind his back; a figure indistinct but straight as an +arrow. + +"Who was looking out?" asked Lingard. + +"Badroon, the Bugis," said Wasub, in his crisp, jerky manner. + +"I can hear nothing. Badroon heard the noise in his mind." + +"The night hides the boat." + +"Have you seen it?" + +"Yes, Tuan. Small boat. Before sunset. By the land. Now coming +here--near. Badroon heard him." + +"Why didn't you report it, then?" asked Lingard, sharply. + +"Malim spoke. He said: 'Nothing there,' while I could see. How +could I know what was in his mind or yours, Tuan?" + +"Do you hear anything now?" + +"No. They stopped now. Perhaps lost the ship--who knows? Perhaps +afraid--" + +"Well!" muttered Lingard, moving his feet uneasily. "I believe +you lie. What kind of boat?" + +"White men's boat. A four-men boat, I think. Small. Tuan, I hear +him now! There!" + +He stretched his arm straight out, pointing abeam for a time, +then his arm fell slowly. + +"Coming this way," he added with decision. + +From forward Shaw called out in a startled tone: + +"Something on the water, sir! Broad on this bow!" + +"All right!" called back Lingard. + +A lump of blacker darkness floated into his view. From it came +over the water English words--deliberate, reaching him one by +one; as if each had made its own difficult way through the +profound stillness of the night. + +"What--ship--is--that--pray?" + +"English brig," answered Lingard, after a short moment of +hesitation. + +"A brig! I thought you were something bigger," went on the voice +from the sea with a tinge of disappointment in its deliberate +tone. "I am coming alongside--if--you--please." + +"No! you don't!" called Lingard back, sharply. The leisurely +drawl of the invisible speaker seemed to him offensive, and woke +up a hostile feeling. "No! you don't if you care for your boat. +Where do you spring from? Who are you--anyhow? How many of you +are there in that boat?" + +After these emphatic questions there was an interval of silence. +During that time the shape of the boat became a little more +distinct. She must have carried some way on her yet, for she +loomed up bigger and nearly abreast of where Lingard stood, +before the self-possessed voice was heard again: + +"I will show you." + +Then, after another short pause, the voice said, less loud but +very plain: + +"Strike on the gunwale. Strike hard, John!" and suddenly a blue +light blazed out, illuminating with a livid flame a round patch +in the night. In the smoke and splutter of that ghastly halo +appeared a white, four-oared gig with five men sitting in her in +a row. Their heads were turned toward the brig with a strong +expression of curiosity on their faces, which, in this glare, +brilliant and sinister, took on a deathlike aspect and resembled +the faces of interested corpses. Then the bowman dropped into the +water the light he held above his head and the darkness, rushing +back at the boat, swallowed it with a loud and angry hiss. + +"Five of us," said the composed voice out of the night that +seemed now darker than before. "Four hands and myself. We belong +to a yacht--a British yacht--" + +"Come on board!" shouted Lingard. "Why didn't you speak at once? +I thought you might have been some masquerading Dutchmen from a +dodging gunboat." + +"Do I speak like a blamed Dutchman? Pull a stroke, boys--oars! +Tend bow, John." + +The boat came alongside with a gentle knock, and a man's shape +began to climb at once up the brig's side with a kind of +ponderous agility. It poised itself for a moment on the rail to +say down into the boat--"Sheer off a little, boys," then jumped +on deck with a thud, and said to Shaw who was coming aft: "Good +evening . . . Captain, sir?" + +"No. On the poop!" growled Shaw. + +"Come up here. Come up," called Lingard, impatiently. + +The Malays had left their stations and stood clustered by the +mainmast in a silent group. Not a word was spoken on the brig's +decks, while the stranger made his way to the waiting captain. +Lingard saw approaching him a short, dapper man, who touched his +cap and repeated his greeting in a cool drawl: + +"Good evening. . . Captain, sir?" + +"Yes, I am the master--what's the matter? Adrift from your ship? +Or what?" + +"Adrift? No! We left her four days ago, and have been pulling +that gig in a calm, nearly ever since. My men are done. So is the +water. Lucky thing I sighted you." + +"You sighted me!" exclaimed Lingard. "When? What time?" + +"Not in the dark, you may be sure. We've been knocking about +amongst some islands to the southward, breaking our hearts +tugging at the oars in one channel, then in another--trying to +get clear. We got round an islet--a barren thing, in shape like a +loaf of sugar--and I caught sight of a vessel a long way off. I +took her bearing in a hurry and we buckled to; but another of +them currents must have had hold of us, for it was a long time +before we managed to clear that islet. I steered by the stars, +and, by the Lord Harry, I began to think I had missed you +somehow--because it must have been you I saw." + +"Yes, it must have been. We had nothing in sight all day," +assented Lingard. "Where's your vessel?" he asked, eagerly. + +"Hard and fast on middling soft mud--I should think about sixty +miles from here. We are the second boat sent off for assistance. +We parted company with the other on Tuesday. She must have passed +to the northward of you to-day. The chief officer is in her with +orders to make for Singapore. I am second, and was sent off +toward the Straits here on the chance of falling in with some +ship. I have a letter from the owner. Our gentry are tired of +being stuck in the mud and wish for assistance." + +"What assistance did you expect to find down here?" + +"The letter will tell you that. May I ask, Captain, for a little +water for the chaps in my boat? And I myself would thank you for +a drink. We haven't had a mouthful since this afternoon. Our +breaker leaked out somehow." + +"See to it, Mr. Shaw," said Lingard. "Come down the cabin, Mr.--" + +"Carter is my name." + +"Ah! Mr. Carter. Come down, come down," went on Lingard, leading +the way down the cabin stairs. + +The steward had lighted the swinging lamp, and had put a decanter +and bottles on the table. The cuddy looked cheerful, painted +white, with gold mouldings round the panels. Opposite the +curtained recess of the stern windows there was a sideboard with +a marble top, and, above it, a looking-glass in a gilt frame. The +semicircular couch round the stern had cushions of crimson plush. +The table was covered with a black Indian tablecloth embroidered +in vivid colours. Between the beams of the poop-deck were fitted +racks for muskets, the barrels of which glinted in the light. +There were twenty-four of them between the four beams. As many +sword-bayonets of an old pattern encircled the polished teakwood +of the rudder-casing with a double belt of brass and steel. All +the doors of the state-rooms had been taken off the hinges and +only curtains closed the doorways. They seemed to be made of +yellow Chinese silk, and fluttered all together, the four of +them, as the two men entered the cuddy. + +Carter took in all at a glance, but his eyes were arrested by a +circular shield hung slanting above the brass hilts of the +bayonets. On its red field, in relief and brightly gilt, was +represented a sheaf of conventional thunderbolts darting down the +middle between the two capitals T. L. Lingard examined his guest +curiously. He saw a young man, but looking still more youthful, +with a boyish smooth face much sunburnt, twinkling blue eyes, +fair hair and a slight moustache. He noticed his arrested gaze. + +"Ah, you're looking at that thing. It's a present from the +builder of this brig. The best man that ever launched a craft. +It's supposed to be the ship's name between my initials--flash of +lightning--d'you see? The brig's name is Lightning and mine is +Lingard." + +"Very pretty thing that: shows the cabin off well," murmured +Carter, politely. + +They drank, nodding at each other, and sat down. + +"Now for the letter," said Lingard. + +Carter passed it over the table and looked about, while Lingard +took the letter out of an open envelope, addressed to the +commander of any British ship in the Java Sea. The paper was +thick, had an embossed heading: "Schooner-yacht Hermit" and was +dated four days before. The message said that on a hazy night the +yacht had gone ashore upon some outlying shoals off the coast of +Borneo. The land was low. The opinion of the sailing-master was +that the vessel had gone ashore at the top of high water, spring +tides. The coast was completely deserted to all appearance. +During the four days they had been stranded there they had +sighted in the distance two small native vessels, which did not +approach. The owner concluded by asking any commander of a +homeward-bound ship to report the yacht's position in Anjer on +his way through Sunda Straits--or to any British or Dutch man-of- +war he might meet. The letter ended by anticipatory thanks, the +offer to pay any expenses in connection with the sending of +messages from Anjer, and the usual polite expressions. + +Folding the paper slowly in the old creases, Lingard said--"I am +not going to Anjer--nor anywhere near." + +"Any place will do, I fancy," said Carter. + +"Not the place where I am bound to," answered Lingard, opening +the letter again and glancing at it uneasily. "He does not +describe very well the coast, and his latitude is very +uncertain," he went on. "I am not clear in my mind where exactly +you are stranded. And yet I know every inch of that land--over +there." + +Carter cleared his throat and began to talk in his slow drawl. He +seemed to dole out facts, to disclose with sparing words the +features of the coast, but every word showed the minuteness of +his observation, the clear vision of a seaman able to master +quickly the aspect of a strange land and of a strange sea. He +presented, with concise lucidity, the picture of the tangle of +reefs and sandbanks, through which the yacht had miraculously +blundered in the dark before she took the ground. + +"The weather seems clear enough at sea," he observed, finally, +and stopped to drink a long draught. Lingard, bending over the +table, had been listening with eager attention. Carter went on in +his curt and deliberate manner: + +"I noticed some high trees on what I take to be the mainland to +the south--and whoever has business in that bight was smart +enough to whitewash two of them: one on the point, and another +farther in. Landmarks, I guess. . . . What's the matter, +Captain?" + +Lingard had jumped to his feet, but Carter's exclamation caused +him to sit down again. + +"Nothing, nothing . . . Tell me, how many men have you in that +yacht?" + +"Twenty-three, besides the gentry, the owner, his wife and a +Spanish gentleman--a friend they picked up in Manila." + +"So you were coming from Manila?" + +"Aye. Bound for Batavia. The owner wishes to study the Dutch +colonial system. Wants to expose it, he says. One can't help +hearing a lot when keeping watch aft--you know how it is. Then we +are going to Ceylon to meet the mail-boat there. The owner is +going home as he came out, overland through Egypt. The yacht +would return round the Cape, of course." + +"A lady?" said Lingard. "You say there is a lady on board. Are +you armed?" + +"Not much," replied Carter, negligently. "There are a few muskets +and two sporting guns aft; that's about all--I fancy it's too +much, or not enough," he added with a faint smile. + +Lingard looked at him narrowly. + +"Did you come out from home in that craft?" he asked. + +"Not I! I am not one of them regular yacht hands. I came out of +the hospital in Hongkong. I've been two years on the China +coast." + +He stopped, then added in an explanatory murmur: + +"Opium clippers--you know. Nothing of brass buttons about me. My +ship left me behind, and I was in want of work. I took this job +but I didn't want to go home particularly. It's slow work after +sailing with old Robinson in the Ly-e-moon. That was my ship. +Heard of her, Captain?" + +"Yes, yes," said Lingard, hastily. "Look here, Mr. Carter, which +way was your chief officer trying for Singapore? Through the +Straits of Rhio?" + +"I suppose so," answered Carter in a slightly surprised tone; +"why do you ask?" + +"Just to know . . . What is it, Mr. Shaw?" + +"There's a black cloud rising to the northward, sir, and we shall +get a breeze directly," said Shaw from the doorway. + +He lingered there with his eyes fixed on the decanters. + +"Will you have a glass?" said Lingard, leaving his seat. "I will +go up and have a look." + +He went on deck. Shaw approached the table and began to help +himself, handling the bottles in profound silence and with +exaggerated caution, as if he had been measuring out of fragile +vessels a dose of some deadly poison. Carter, his hands in his +pockets, and leaning back, examined him from head to foot with a +cool stare. The mate of the brig raised the glass to his lips, +and glaring above the rim at the stranger, drained the contents +slowly. + +"You have a fine nose for finding ships in the dark, Mister," he +said, distinctly, putting the glass on the table with extreme +gentleness. + +"Eh? What's that? I sighted you just after sunset." + +"And you knew where to look, too," said Shaw, staring hard. + +"I looked to the westward where there was still some light, as +any sensible man would do," retorted the other a little +impatiently. "What are you trying to get at?" + +"And you have a ready tongue to blow about yourself--haven't +you?" + +"Never saw such a man in my life," declared Carter, with a return +of his nonchalant manner. "You seem to be troubled about +something." + +"I don't like boats to come sneaking up from nowhere in +particular, alongside a ship when I am in charge of the deck. I +can keep a lookout as well as any man out of home ports, but I +hate to be circumvented by muffled oars and such ungentlemanlike +tricks. Yacht officer--indeed. These seas must be full of such +yachtsmen. I consider you played a mean trick on me. I told my +old man there was nothing in sight at sunset--and no more there +was. I believe you blundered upon us by chance--for all your +boasting about sunsets and bearings. Gammon! I know you came on +blindly on top of us, and with muffled oars, too. D'ye call that +decent?" + +"If I did muffle the oars it was for a good reason. I wanted to +slip past a cove where some native craft were moored. That was +common prudence in such a small boat, and not armed--as I am. I +saw you right enough, but I had no intention to startle anybody. +Take my word for it." + +"I wish you had gone somewhere else," growled Shaw. "I hate to be +put in the wrong through accident and untruthfulness--there! +Here's my old man calling me--" + +He left the cabin hurriedly and soon afterward Lingard came down, +and sat again facing Carter across the table. His face was grave +but resolute. + +"We shall get the breeze directly," he said. + +"Then, sir," said Carter, getting up, "if you will give me back +that letter I shall go on cruising about here to speak some other +ship. I trust you will report us wherever you are going." + +"I am going to the yacht and I shall keep the letter," answered +Lingard with decision. "I know exactly where she is, and I must +go to the rescue of those people. It's most fortunate you've +fallen in with me, Mr. Carter. Fortunate for them and fortunate +for me," he added in a lower tone. + +"Yes," drawled Carter, reflectively. "There may be a tidy bit of +salvage money if you should get the vessel off, but I don't think +you can do much. I had better stay out here and try to speak some +gunboat--" + +"You must come back to your ship with me," said Lingard, +authoritatively. "Never mind the gunboats." + +"That wouldn't be carrying out my orders," argued Carter. "I've +got to speak a homeward-bound ship or a man-of-war--that's plain +enough. I am not anxious to knock about for days in an open boat, +but--let me fill my fresh-water breaker, Captain, and I will be +off." + +"Nonsense," said Lingard, sharply. "You've got to come with me to +show the place and--and help. I'll take your boat in tow." + +Carter did not seem convinced. Lingard laid a heavy hand on his +shoulder. + +"Look here, young fellow. I am Tom Lingard and there's not a +white man among these islands, and very few natives, that have +not heard of me. My luck brought you into my ship--and now I've +got you, you must stay. You must!" + +The last "must" burst out loud and sharp like a pistol-shot. +Carter stepped back. + +"Do you mean you would keep me by force?" he asked, startled. + +"Force," repeated Lingard. "It rests with you. I cannot let you +speak any vessel. Your yacht has gone ashore in a most +inconvenient place--for me; and with your boats sent off here and +there, you would bring every infernal gunboat buzzing to a spot +that was as quiet and retired as the heart of man could wish. You +stranding just on that spot of the whole coast was my bad luck. +And that I could not help. You coming upon me like this is my +good luck. And that I hold!" + +He dropped his clenched fist, big and muscular, in the light of +the lamp on the black cloth, amongst the glitter of glasses, with +the strong fingers closed tight upon the firm flesh of the palm. +He left it there for a moment as if showing Carter that luck he +was going to hold. And he went on: + +"Do you know into what hornet's nest your stupid people have +blundered? How much d'ye think their lives are worth, just now? +Not a brass farthing if the breeze fails me for another +twenty-four hours. You may well open your eyes. It is so! And it +may be too late now, while I am arguing with you here." + +He tapped the table with his knuckles, and the glasses, waking +up, jingled a thin, plaintive finale to his speech. Carter stood +leaning against the sideboard. He was amazed by the unexpected +turn of the conversation; his jaw dropped slightly and his eyes +never swerved for a moment from Lingard's face. The silence in +the cabin lasted only a few seconds, but to Carter, who waited +breathlessly, it seemed very long. And all at once he heard in +it, for the first time, the cabin clock tick distinctly, in +pulsating beats, as though a little heart of metal behind the +dial had been started into sudden palpitation. + +"A gunboat!" shouted Lingard, suddenly, as if he had seen only in +that moment, by the light of some vivid flash of thought, all the +difficulties of the situation. "If you don't go back with me +there will be nothing left for you to go back to--very soon. Your +gunboat won't find a single ship's rib or a single corpse left +for a landmark. That she won't. It isn't a gunboat skipper you +want. I am the man you want. You don't know your luck when you +see it, but I know mine, I do--and--look here- -" + +He touched Carter's chest with his forefinger, and said with a +sudden gentleness of tone: + +"I am a white man inside and out; I won't let inoffensive people- +-and a woman, too--come to harm if I can help it. And if I can't +help, nobody can. You understand--nobody! There's no time for it. +But I am like any other man that is worth his salt: I won't let +the end of an undertaking go by the board while there is a chance +to hold on--and it's like this--" + +His voice was persuasive--almost caressing; he had hold now of a +coat button and tugged at it slightly as he went on in a +confidential manner: + +"As it turns out, Mr. Carter, I would--in a manner of speaking--I +would as soon shoot you where you stand as let you go to raise an +alarm all over this sea about your confounded yacht. I have other +lives to consider--and friends-- and promises--and--and myself, +too. I shall keep you," he concluded, sharply. + +Carter drew a long breath. On the deck above, the two men could +hear soft footfalls, short murmurs, indistinct words spoken near +the skylight. Shaw's voice rang out loudly in growling tones: + +"Furl the royals, you tindal!" + +"It's the queerest old go," muttered Carter, looking down on to +the floor. "You are a strange man. I suppose I must believe what +you say--unless you and that fat mate of yours are a couple of +escaped lunatics that got hold of a brig by some means. Why, that +chap up there wanted to pick a quarrel with me for coming aboard, +and now you threaten to shoot me rather than let me go. Not that +I care much about that; for some time or other you would get +hanged for it; and you don't look like a man that will end that +way. If what you say is only half true, I ought to get back to +the yacht as quick as ever I can. It strikes me that your coming +to them will be only a small mercy, anyhow--and I may be of some +use--But this is the queerest. . . . May I go in my boat?" + +"As you like," said Lingard. "There's a rain squall coming." + +"I am in charge and will get wet along of my chaps. Give us a +good long line, Captain." + +"It's done already," said Lingard. "You seem a sensible sailorman +and can see that it would be useless to try and give me the +slip." + +"For a man so ready to shoot, you seem very trustful," drawled +Carter. "If I cut adrift in a squall, I stand a pretty fair +chance not to see you again." + +"You just try," said Lingard, drily. "I have eyes in this brig, +young man, that will see your boat when you couldn't see the +ship. You are of the kind I like, but if you monkey with me I +will find you--and when I find you I will run you down as surely +as I stand here." + +Carter slapped his thigh and his eyes twinkled. + +"By the Lord Harry!" he cried. "If it wasn't for the men with me, +I would try for sport. You are so cocksure about the lot you can +do, Captain. You would aggravate a saint into open mutiny." + +His easy good humour had returned; but after a short burst of +laughter, he became serious. + +"Never fear," he said, "I won't slip away. If there is to be any +throat-cutting--as you seem to hint--mine will be there, too, I +promise you, and. . . ." + +He stretched his arms out, glanced at them, shook them a little. + +"And this pair of arms to take care of it," he added, in his old, +careless drawl. + +ut the master of the brig sitting with both his elbows on the +table, his face in his hands, had fallen unexpectedly into a +meditation so concentrated and so profound that he seemed neither +to hear, see, nor breathe. The sight of that man's complete +absorption in thought was to Carter almost more surprising than +any other occurrence of that night. Had his strange host vanished +suddenly from before his eyes, it could not have made him feel +more uncomfortably alone in that cabin where the pertinacious +clock kept ticking off the useless minutes of the calm before it +would, with the same steady beat, begin to measure the aimless +disturbance of the storm. + + + +III + +After waiting a moment, Carter went on deck. The sky, the sea, +the brig itself had disappeared in a darkness that had become +impenetrable, palpable, and stifling. An immense cloud had come +up running over the heavens, as if looking for the little craft, +and now hung over it, arrested. To the south there was a livid +trembling gleam, faint and sad, like a vanishing memory of +destroyed starlight. To the north, as if to prove the impossible, +an incredibly blacker patch outlined on the tremendous blackness +of the sky the heart of the coming squall. The glimmers in the +water had gone out and the invisible sea all around lay mute and +still as if it had died suddenly of fright. + +Carter could see nothing. He felt about him people moving; he +heard them in the darkness whispering faintly as if they had been +exchanging secrets important or infamous. The night effaced even +words, and its mystery had captured everything and every sound-- +had left nothing free but the unexpected that seemed to hover +about one, ready to stretch out its stealthy hand in a touch +sudden, familiar, and appalling. Even the careless disposition of +the young ex-officer of an opium-clipper was affected by the +ominous aspect of the hour. What was this vessel? What were those +people? What would happen to-morrow? To the yacht? To himself? He +felt suddenly without any additional reason but the darkness that +it was a poor show, anyhow, a dashed poor show for all hands. The +irrational conviction made him falter for a second where he stood +and he gripped the slide of the companionway hard. + +Shaw's voice right close to his ear relieved and cleared his +troubled thoughts. + +"Oh! it's you, Mister. Come up at last," said the mate of the +brig slowly. "It appears we've got to give you a tow now. Of all +the rum in-cidents, this beats all. A boat sneaks up from nowhere +and turns out to be a long-expected friend! For you are one of +them friends the skipper was going to meet somewhere here. Ain't +you now? Come! I know more than you may think. Are we off to--you +may just as well tell--off to--h'm ha . . . you know?" + +"Yes. I know. Don't you?" articulated Carter, innocently. + +Shaw remained very quiet for a minute. + +"Where's my skipper?" he asked at last. + +"I left him down below in a kind of trance. Where's my boat?" + +"Your boat is hanging astern. And my opinion is that you are as +uncivil as I've proved you to be untruthful. Egzz-actly." + +Carter stumbled toward the taffrail and in the first step he made +came full against somebody who glided away. It seemed to him that +such a night brings men to a lower level. He thought that he +might have been knocked on the head by anybody strong enough to +lift a crow-bar. He felt strangely irritated. He said loudly, +aiming his words at Shaw whom he supposed somewhere near: + +"And my opinion is that you and your skipper will come to a +sudden bad end before--" + +"I thought you were in your boat. Have you changed your mind?" +asked Lingard in his deep voice close to Carter's elbow. + +Carter felt his way along the rail, till his hand found a line +that seemed, in the calm, to stream out of its own accord into +the darkness. He hailed his boat, and directly heard the wash of +water against her bows as she was hauled quickly under the +counter. Then he loomed up shapeless on the rail, and the next +moment disappeared as if he had fallen out of the universe. +Lingard heard him say: + +"Catch hold of my leg, John." There were hollow sounds in the +boat; a voice growled, "All right." + +"Keep clear of the counter," said Lingard, speaking in quiet +warning tones into the night. "The brig may get a lot of sternway +on her should this squall not strike her fairly." + +"Aye, aye. I will mind," was the muttered answer from the water. + +Lingard crossed over to the port side, and looked steadily at the +sooty mass of approaching vapours. After a moment he said curtly, +"Brace up for the port tack, Mr. Shaw," and remained silent, with +his face to the sea. A sound, sorrowful and startling like the +sigh of some immense creature, travelling across the starless +space, passed above the vertical and lofty spars of the +motionless brig. + +It grew louder, then suddenly ceased for a moment, and the taut +rigging of the brig was heard vibrating its answer in a singing +note to this threatening murmur of the winds. A long and slow +undulation lifted the level of the waters, as if the sea had +drawn a deep breath of anxious suspense. The next minute an +immense disturbance leaped out of the darkness upon the sea, +kindling upon it a livid clearness of foam, and the first gust of +the squall boarded the brig in a stinging flick of rain and +spray. As if overwhelmed by the suddenness of the fierce onset, +the vessel remained for a second upright where she floated, +shaking with tremendous jerks from trucks to keel; while high up +in the night the invisible canvas was heard rattling and beating +about violently. + +Then, with a quick double report, as of heavy guns, both topsails +filled at once and the brig fell over swiftly on her side. Shaw +was thrown headlong against the skylight, and Lingard, who had +encircled the weather rail with his arm, felt the vessel under +his feet dart forward smoothly, and the deck become less +slanting--the speed of the brig running off a little now, easing +the overturning strain of the wind upon the distended surfaces of +the sails. It was only the fineness of the little vessel's lines +and the perfect shape of her hull that saved the canvas, and +perhaps the spars, by enabling the ready craft to get way upon +herself with such lightning-like rapidity. Lingard drew a long +breath and yelled jubilantly at Shaw who was struggling up +against wind and rain to his commander's side. + +"She'll do. Hold on everything." + +Shaw tried to speak. He swallowed great mouthfuls of tepid water +which the wind drove down his throat. The brig seemed to sail +through undulating waves that passed swishing between the masts +and swept over the decks with the fierce rush and noise of a +cataract. From every spar and every rope a ragged sheet of water +streamed flicking to leeward. The overpowering deluge seemed to +last for an age; became unbearable--and, all at once, stopped. In +a couple of minutes the shower had run its length over the brig +and now could be seen like a straight grey wall, going away into +the night under the fierce whispering of dissolving clouds. The +wind eased. To the northward, low down in the darkness, three +stars appeared in a row, leaping in and out between the crests of +waves like the distant heads of swimmers in a running surf; and +the retreating edge of the cloud, perfectly straight from east to +west, slipped along the dome of the sky like an immense +hemispheric, iron shutter pivoting down smoothly as if operated +by some mighty engine. An inspiring and penetrating freshness +flowed together with the shimmer of light, through the augmented +glory of the heaven, a glory exalted, undimmed, and strangely +startling as if a new world had been created during the short +flight of the stormy cloud. It was a return to life, a return to +space; the earth coming out from under a pall to take its place +in the renewed and immense scintillation of the universe. + +The brig, her yards slightly checked in, ran with an easy motion +under the topsails, jib and driver, pushing contemptuously aside +the turbulent crowd of noisy and agitated waves. As the craft +went swiftly ahead she unrolled behind her over the uneasy +darkness of the sea a broad ribbon of seething foam shot with +wispy gleams of dark discs escaping from under the rudder. Far +away astern, at the end of a line no thicker than a black thread, +which dipped now and then its long curve in the bursting froth, a +toy-like object could be made out, elongated and dark, racing +after the brig over the snowy whiteness of her wake. + +Lingard walked aft, and, with both his hands on the taffrail, +looked eagerly for Carter's boat. The first glance satisfied +him that the yacht's gig was towing easily at the end of the long +scope of line, and he turned away to look ahead and to leeward +with a steady gaze. It was then half an hour past midnight and +Shaw, relieved by Wasub, had gone below. Before he went, he said +to Lingard, "I will be off, sir, if you're not going to make more +sail yet." "Not yet for a while," had answered Lingard in a +preoccupied manner; and Shaw departed aggrieved at such a neglect +of making the best of a good breeze. + +On the main deck dark-skinned men, whose clothing clung to their +shivering limbs as if they had been overboard, had finished +recoiling the braces, and clearing the gear. The kassab, after +having hung the fore-topsail halyards in the becket, strutted +into the waist toward a row of men who stood idly with their +shoulders against the side of the long boat amidships. He passed +along looking up close at the stolid faces. Room was made for +him, and he took his place at the end. + +"It was a great rain and a mighty wind, O men," he said, +dogmatically, "but no wind can ever hurt this ship. That I knew +while I stood minding the sail which is under my care." + +A dull and inexpressive murmur was heard from the men. Over the +high weather rail, a topping wave flung into their eyes a handful +of heavy drops that stung like hail. There were low groans of +indignation. A man sighed. Another emitted a spasmodic laugh +through his chattering teeth. No one moved away. The little +kassab wiped his face and went on in his cracked voice, to the +accompaniment of the swishing sounds made by the seas that swept +regularly astern along the ship's side. + +"Have you heard him shout at the wind--louder than the wind? I +have heard, being far forward. And before, too, in the many years +I served this white man I have heard him often cry magic words +that make all safe. Ya-wa! This is truth. Ask Wasub who is a +Haji, even as I am." + +"I have seen white men's ships with their masts broken--also +wrecked like our own praus," remarked sadly a lean, lank fellow +who shivered beside the kassab, hanging his head and trying to +grasp his shoulder blades. + +"True," admitted the kassab. "They are all the children of Satan +but to some more favour is shown. To obey such men on the sea or +in a fight is good. I saw him who is master here fight with wild +men who eat their enemies--far away to the eastward--and I dealt +blows by his side without fear; for the charms he, no doubt, +possesses protect his servants also. I am a believer and the +Stoned One can not touch my forehead. Yet the reward of victory +comes from the accursed. For six years have I sailed with that +white man; first as one who minds the rudder, for I am a man of +the sea, born in a prau, and am skilled in such work. And now, +because of my great knowledge of his desires, I have the care of +all things in this ship." + +Several voices muttered, "True. True." They remained apathetic +and patient, in the rush of wind, under the repeated short +flights of sprays. The slight roll of the ship balanced them +stiffly all together where they stood propped against the big +boat. The breeze humming between the inclined masts enveloped +their dark and silent figures in the unceasing resonance of its +breath. + +The brig's head had been laid so as to pass a little to windward +of the small islands of the Carimata group. They had been till +then hidden in the night, but now both men on the lookout +reported land ahead in one long cry. Lingard, standing to leeward +abreast of the wheel, watched the islet first seen. When it was +nearly abeam of the brig he gave his orders, and Wasub hurried +off to the main deck. The helm was put down, the yards on the +main came slowly square and the wet canvas of the main-topsail +clung suddenly to the mast after a single heavy flap. The +dazzling streak of the ship's wake vanished. The vessel lost her +way and began to dip her bows into the quick succession of the +running head seas. And at every slow plunge of the craft, the +song of the wind would swell louder amongst the waving spars, +with a wild and mournful note. + +Just as the brig's boat had been swung out, ready for lowering, +the yacht's gig hauled up by its line appeared tossing and +splashing on the lee quarter. Carter stood up in the stern sheets +balancing himself cleverly to the disordered motion of his +cockleshell. He hailed the brig twice to know what was the +matter, not being able from below and in the darkness to make out +what that confused group of men on the poop were about. He got no +answer, though he could see the shape of a man standing by +himself aft, and apparently watching him. He was going to repeat +his hail for the third time when he heard the rattling of tackles +followed by a heavy splash, a burst of voices, scrambling hollow +sounds--and a dark mass detaching itself from the brig's side +swept past him on the crest of a passing wave. For less than a +second he could see on the shimmer of the night sky the shape of +a boat, the heads of men, the blades of oars pointing upward +while being got out hurriedly. Then all this sank out of sight, +reappeared once more far off and hardly discernible, before +vanishing for good. + +"Why, they've lowered a boat!" exclaimed Carter, falling back in +his seat. He remembered that he had seen only a few hours ago +three native praus lurking amongst those very islands. For a +moment he had the idea of casting off to go in chase of that +boat, so as to find out. . . . Find out what? He gave up his idea +at once. What could he do? + +The conviction that the yacht, and everything belonging to her, +were in some indefinite but very real danger, took afresh a +strong hold of him, and the persuasion that the master of the +brig was going there to help did not by any means assuage his +alarm. The fact only served to complicate his uneasiness with a +sense of mystery. + +The white man who spoke as if that sea was all his own, or as if +people intruded upon his privacy by taking the liberty of getting +wrecked on a coast where he and his friends did some queer +business, seemed to him an undesirable helper. That the boat had +been lowered to communicate with the praus seen and avoided by +him in the evening he had no doubt. The thought had flashed on +him at once. It had an ugly look. Yet the best thing to do after +all was to hang on and get back to the yacht and warn them. . . . +Warn them against whom? The man had been perfectly open with him. +Warn them against what? It struck him that he hadn't the +slightest conception of what would happen, of what was even +likely to happen. That strange rescuer himself was bringing the +news of danger. Danger from the natives of course. And yet he was +in communication with those natives. That was evident. That boat +going off in the night. . . . Carter swore heartily to himself. +His perplexity became positive bodily pain as he sat, wet, +uncomfortable, and still, one hand on the tiller, thrown up and +down in headlong swings of his boat. And before his eyes, +towering high, the black hull of the brig also rose and fell, +setting her stern down in the sea, now and again, with a +tremendous and foaming splash. Not a sound from her reached +Carter's ears. She seemed an abandoned craft but for the outline +of a man's head and body still visible in a watchful attitude +above the taffrail. + +Carter told his bowman to haul up closer and hailed: + +"Brig ahoy. Anything wrong?" + +He waited, listening. The shadowy man still watched. After some +time a curt "No" came back in answer. + +"Are you going to keep hove-to long?" shouted Carter. + +"Don't know. Not long. Drop your boat clear of the ship. Drop +clear. Do damage if you don't." + +"Slack away, John!" said Carter in a resigned tone to the elderly +seaman in the bow. "Slack away and let us ride easy to the full +scope. They don't seem very talkative on board there." + +Even while he was speaking the line ran out and the regular +undulations of the passing seas drove the boat away from the +brig. Carter turned a little in his seat to look at the land. It +loomed up dead to leeward like a lofty and irregular cone only a +mile or a mile and a half distant. The noise of the surf beating +upon its base was heard against the wind in measured detonations. +The fatigue of many days spent in the boat asserted itself above +the restlessness of Carter's thoughts and, gradually, he lost the +notion of the passing time without altogether losing the +consciousness of his situation. + +In the intervals of that benumbed stupor--rather than sleep--he +was aware that the interrupted noise of the surf had grown into a +continuous great rumble, swelling periodically into a loud roar; +that the high islet appeared now bigger, and that a white fringe +of foam was visible at its feet. Still there was no stir or +movement of any kind on board the brig. He noticed that the wind +was moderating and the sea going down with it, and then dozed off +again for a minute. When next he opened his eyes with a start, it +was just in time to see with surprise a new star soar noiselessly +straight up from behind the land, take up its position in a +brilliant constellation--and go out suddenly. Two more followed, +ascending together, and after reaching about the same elevation, +expired side by side. + +"Them's rockets, sir--ain't they?" said one of the men in a +muffled voice. + +"Aye, rockets," grunted Carter. "And now, what's the next move?" +he muttered to himself dismally. + +He got his answer in the fierce swishing whirr of a slender ray +of fire that, shooting violently upward from the sombre hull of +the brig, dissolved at once into a dull red shower of falling +sparks. Only one, white and brilliant, remained alone poised high +overhead, and after glowing vividly for a second, exploded with a +feeble report. Almost at the same time he saw the brig's head +fall off the wind, made out the yards swinging round to fill the +main topsail, and heard distinctly the thud of the first wave +thrown off by the advancing bows. The next minute the tow-line +got the strain and his boat started hurriedly after the brig with +a sudden jerk. + +Leaning forward, wide awake and attentive, Carter steered. His +men sat one behind another with shoulders up, and arched backs, +dozing, uncomfortable but patient, upon the thwarts. The care +requisite to steer the boat properly in the track of the seething +and disturbed water left by the brig in her rapid course +prevented him from reflecting much upon the incertitude of the +future and upon his own unusual situation. + +Now he was only exceedingly anxious to see the yacht again, and +it was with a feeling of very real satisfaction that he saw all +plain sail being made on the brig. Through the remaining hours of +the night he sat grasping the tiller and keeping his eyes on the +shadowy and high pyramid of canvas gliding steadily ahead of his +boat with a slight balancing movement from side to side. + + + +IV + +It was noon before the brig, piloted by Lingard through the deep +channels between the outer coral reefs, rounded within +pistol-shot a low hummock of sand which marked the end of a long +stretch of stony ledges that, being mostly awash, showed a black +head only, here and there amongst the hissing brown froth of the +yellow sea. As the brig drew clear of the sandy patch there +appeared, dead to windward and beyond a maze of broken water, +sandspits, and clusters of rocks, the black hull of the yacht +heeling over, high and motionless upon the great expanse of +glittering shallows. Her long, naked spars were inclined slightly +as if she had been sailing with a good breeze. There was to the +lookers-on aboard the brig something sad and disappointing in the +yacht's aspect as she lay perfectly still in an attitude that in +a seaman's mind is associated with the idea of rapid motion. + +"Here she is!" said Shaw, who, clad in a spotless white suit, +came just then from forward where he had been busy with the +anchors. "She is well on, sir--isn't she? Looks like a mudflat to +me from here." + +"Yes. It is a mudflat," said Lingard, slowly, raising the long +glass to his eye. "Haul the mainsail up, Mr. Shaw," he went on +while he took a steady look at the yacht. "We will have to work +in short tacks here." + +He put the glass down and moved away from the rail. For the next +hour he handled his little vessel in the intricate and narrow +channel with careless certitude, as if every stone, every grain +of sand upon the treacherous bottom had been plainly disclosed to +his sight. He handled her in the fitful and unsteady breeze with +a matter-of-fact audacity that made Shaw, forward at his station, +gasp in sheer alarm. When heading toward the inshore shoals the +brig was never put round till the quick, loud cries of the +leadsmen announced that there were no more than three feet of +water under her keel; and when standing toward the steep inner +edge of the long reef, where the lead was of no use, the helm +would be put down only when the cutwater touched the faint line +of the bordering foam. Lingard's love for his brig was a man's +love, and was so great that it could never be appeased unless he +called on her to put forth all her qualities and her power, to +repay his exacting affection by a faithfulness tried to the very +utmost limit of endurance. Every flutter of the sails flew down +from aloft along the taut leeches, to enter his heart in a sense +of acute delight; and the gentle murmur of water alongside, +which, continuous and soft, showed that in all her windings his +incomparable craft had never, even for an instant, ceased to +carry her way, was to him more precious and inspiring than the +soft whisper of tender words would have been to another man. It +was in such moments that he lived intensely, in a flush of strong +feeling that made him long to press his little vessel to his +breast. She was his perfect world full of trustful joy. + +The people on board the yacht, who watched eagerly the first sail +they had seen since they had been ashore on that deserted part of +the coast, soon made her out, with some disappointment, to be a +small merchant brig beating up tack for tack along the inner edge +of the reef--probably with the intention to communicate and offer +assistance. The general opinion among the seafaring portion of +her crew was that little effective assistance could be expected +from a vessel of that description. Only the sailing-master of the +yacht remarked to the boatswain (who had the advantage of being +his first cousin): "This man is well acquainted here; you can see +that by the way he handles his brig. I shan't be sorry to have +somebody to stand by us. Can't tell when we will get off this +mud, George." + +A long board, sailed very close, enabled the brig to fetch the +southern limit of discoloured water over the bank on which the +yacht had stranded. On the very edge of the muddy patch she was +put in stays for the last time. As soon as she had paid off on +the other tack, sail was shortened smartly, and the brig +commenced the stretch that was to bring her to her anchorage, +under her topsails, lower staysails and jib. There was then less +than a quarter of a mile of shallow water between her and the +yacht; but while that vessel had gone ashore with her head to the +eastward the brig was moving slowly in a west-northwest +direction, and consequently, sailed--so to speak--past the whole +length of the yacht. Lingard saw every soul in the schooner on +deck, watching his advent in a silence which was as unbroken and +perfect as that on board his own vessel. + +A little man with a red face framed in white whiskers waved a +gold-laced cap above the rail in the waist of the yacht. Lingard +raised his arm in return. Further aft, under the white awnings, +he could see two men and a woman. One of the men and the lady +were in blue. The other man, who seemed very tall and stood with +his arm entwined round an awning stanchion above his head, was +clad in white. Lingard saw them plainly. They looked at the brig +through binoculars, turned their faces to one another, moved +their lips, seemed surprised. A large dog put his forepaws on the +rail, and, lifting up his big, black head, sent out three loud +and plaintive barks, then dropped down out of sight. A sudden +stir and an appearance of excitement amongst all hands on board +the yacht was caused by their perceiving that the boat towing +astern of the stranger was their own second gig. + +Arms were outstretched with pointing fingers. Someone shouted out +a long sentence of which not a word could be made out; and then +the brig, having reached the western limit of the bank, began to +move diagonally away, increasing her distance from the yacht but +bringing her stern gradually into view. The people aft, Lingard +noticed, left their places and walked over to the taffrail so as +to keep him longer in sight. + +When about a mile off the bank and nearly in line with the stern +of the yacht the brig's topsails fluttered and the yards came +down slowly on the caps; the fore and aft canvas ran down; and +for some time she floated quietly with folded wings upon the +transparent sheet of water, under the radiant silence of the sky. +Then her anchor went to the bottom with a rumbling noise +resembling the roll of distant thunder. In a moment her head +tended to the last puffs of the northerly airs and the ensign at +the peak stirred, unfurled itself slowly, collapsed, flew out +again, and finally hung down straight and still, as if weighted +with lead. + +"Dead calm, sir," said Shaw to Lingard. "Dead calm again. We got +into this funny place in the nick of time, sir." + +They stood for a while side by side, looking round upon the coast +and the sea. The brig had been brought up in the middle of a +broad belt of clear water. To the north rocky ledges showed in +black and white lines upon the slight swell setting in from +there. A small island stood out from the broken water like the +square tower of some submerged building. It was about two miles +distant from the brig. To the eastward the coast was low; a coast +of green forests fringed with dark mangroves. There was in its +sombre dullness a clearly defined opening, as if a small piece +had been cut out with a sharp knife. The water in it shone like a +patch of polished silver. Lingard pointed it out to Shaw. + +"This is the entrance to the place where we are going," he said. + +Shaw stared, round-eyed. + +"I thought you came here on account of this here yacht," he +stammered, surprised. + +"Ah. The yacht," said Lingard, musingly, keeping his eyes on the +break in the coast. "The yacht--" He stamped his foot suddenly. +"I would give all I am worth and throw in a few days of life into +the bargain if I could get her off and away before to-night." + +He calmed down, and again stood gazing at the land. A little +within the entrance from behind the wall of forests an invisible +fire belched out steadily the black and heavy convolutions of +thick smoke, which stood out high, like a twisted and shivering +pillar against the clear blue of the sky. + +"We must stop that game, Mr. Shaw," said Lingard, abruptly. + +"Yes, sir. What game?" asked Shaw, looking round in wonder. + +"This smoke," said Lingard, impatiently. "It's a signal." + +"Certainly, sir--though I don't see how we can do it. It seems +far inland. A signal for what, sir?" + +"It was not meant for us," said Lingard in an unexpectedly savage +tone. "Here, Shaw, make them put a blank charge into that +forecastle gun. Tell 'em to ram hard the wadding and grease the +mouth. We want to make a good noise. If old Jorgenson hears it, +that fire will be out before you have time to turn round twice. . +. . In a minute, Mr. Carter." + +The yacht's boat had come alongside as soon as the brig had been +brought up, and Carter had been waiting to take Lingard on board +the yacht. They both walked now to the gangway. Shaw, following +his commander, stood by to take his last orders. + +"Put all the boats in the water, Mr. Shaw," Lingard was saying, +with one foot on the rail, ready to leave his ship, "and mount +the four-pounder swivel in the longboat's bow. Cast off the sea +lashings of the guns, but don't run 'em out yet. Keep the +topsails loose and the jib ready for setting, I may want the +sails in a hurry. Now, Mr. Carter, I am ready for you." + +"Shove off, boys," said Carter as soon as they were seated in the +boat. "Shove off, and give way for a last pull before you get a +long rest." + +The men lay back on their oars, grunting. Their faces were drawn, +grey and streaked with the dried salt sprays. They had the +worried expression of men who had a long call made upon their +endurance. Carter, heavy-eyed and dull, steered for the yacht's +gangway. Lingard asked as they were crossing the brig's bows: + +"Water enough alongside your craft, I suppose?" + +"Yes. Eight to twelve feet," answered Carter, hoarsely. "Say, +Captain! Where's your show of cutthroats? Why! This sea is as +empty as a church on a week-day." + +The booming report, nearly over his head, of the brig's +eighteen-pounder interrupted him. A round puff of white vapour, +spreading itself lazily, clung in fading shreds about the +foreyard. Lingard, turning half round in the stern sheets, looked +at the smoke on the shore. Carter remained silent, staring +sleepily at the yacht they were approaching. Lingard kept +watching the smoke so intensely that he almost forgot where he +was, till Carter's voice pronouncing sharply at his ear the words +"way enough," recalled him to himself. + +They were in the shadow of the yacht and coming alongside her +ladder. The master of the brig looked upward into the face of a +gentleman, with long whiskers and a shaved chin, staring down at +him over the side through a single eyeglass. As he put his foot +on the bottom step he could see the shore smoke still ascending, +unceasing and thick; but even as he looked the very base of the +black pillar rose above the ragged line of tree-tops. The whole +thing floated clear away from the earth, and rolling itself into +an irregularly shaped mass, drifted out to seaward, travelling +slowly over the blue heavens, like a threatening and lonely +cloud. + + + +PART II. THE SHORE OF REFUGE + +I + +The coast off which the little brig, floating upright above her +anchor, seemed to guard the high hull of the yacht has no +distinctive features. It is land without form. It stretches away +without cape or bluff, long and low--indefinitely; and when the +heavy gusts of the northeast monsoon drive the thick rain +slanting over the sea, it is seen faintly under the grey sky, +black and with a blurred outline like the straight edge of a +dissolving shore. In the long season of unclouded days, it +presents to view only a narrow band of earth that appears crushed +flat upon the vast level of waters by the weight of the sky, +whose immense dome rests on it in a line as fine and true as that +of the sea horizon itself. + +Notwithstanding its nearness to the centres of European power, +this coast has been known for ages to the armed wanderers of +these seas as "The Shore of Refuge." It has no specific name on +the charts, and geography manuals don't mention it at all; but +the wreckage of many defeats unerringly drifts into its creeks. +Its approaches are extremely difficult for a stranger. Looked at +from seaward, the innumerable islets fringing what, on account of +its vast size, may be called the mainland, merge into a +background that presents not a single landmark to point the way +through the intricate channels. It may be said that in a belt of +sea twenty miles broad along that low shore there is much more +coral, mud, sand, and stones than actual sea water. It was +amongst the outlying shoals of this stretch that the yacht had +gone ashore and the events consequent upon her stranding took +place. + +The diffused light of the short daybreak showed the open water to +the westward, sleeping, smooth and grey, under a faded heaven. +The straight coast threw a heavy belt of gloom along the shoals, +which, in the calm of expiring night, were unmarked by the +slightest ripple. In the faint dawn the low clumps of bushes on +the sandbanks appeared immense. + +Two figures, noiseless like two shadows, moved slowly over the +beach of a rocky islet, and stopped side by side on the very edge +of the water. Behind them, between the mats from which they had +arisen, a small heap of black embers smouldered quietly. They +stood upright and perfectly still, but for the slight movement of +their heads from right to left and back again as they swept their +gaze through the grey emptiness of the waters where, about two +miles distant, the hull of the yacht loomed up to seaward, black +and shapeless, against the wan sky. + +The two figures looked beyond without exchanging as much as a +murmur. The taller of the two grounded, at arm's length, the +stock of a gun with a long barrel; the hair of the other fell +down to its waist; and, near by, the leaves of creepers drooping +from the summit of the steep rock stirred no more than the +festooned stone. The faint light, disclosing here and there a +gleam of white sandbanks and the blurred hummocks of islets +scattered within the gloom of the coast, the profound silence, +the vast stillness all round, accentuated the loneliness of the +two human beings who, urged by a sleepless hope, had risen thus, +at break of day, to look afar upon the veiled face of the sea. + +"Nothing!" said the man with a sigh, and as if awakening from a +long period of musing. + +He was clad in a jacket of coarse blue cotton, of the kind a poor +fisherman might own, and he wore it wide open on a muscular chest +the colour and smoothness of bronze. From the twist of threadbare +sarong wound tightly on the hips protruded outward to the left +the ivory hilt, ringed with six bands of gold, of a weapon that +would not have disgraced a ruler. Silver glittered about the +flintlock and the hardwood stock of his gun. The red and gold +handkerchief folded round his head was of costly stuff, such as +is woven by high-born women in the households of chiefs, only the +gold threads were tarnished and the silk frayed in the folds. His +head was thrown back, the dropped eyelids narrowed the gleam of +his eyes. His face was hairless, the nose short with mobile +nostrils, and the smile of careless good-humour seemed to have +been permanently wrought, as if with a delicate tool, into the +slight hollows about the corners of rather full lips. His upright +figure had a negligent elegance. But in the careless face, in the +easy gestures of the whole man there was something attentive and +restrained. + +After giving the offing a last searching glance, he turned and, +facing the rising sun, walked bare-footed on the elastic sand. +The trailed butt of his gun made a deep furrow. The embers had +ceased to smoulder. He looked down at them pensively for a while, +then called over his shoulder to the girl who had remained +behind, still scanning the sea: + +"The fire is out, Immada." + +At the sound of his voice the girl moved toward the mats. Her +black hair hung like a mantle. Her sarong, the kilt-like garment +which both sexes wear, had the national check of grey and red, +but she had not completed her attire by the belt, scarves, the +loose upper wrappings, and the head-covering of a woman. A black +silk jacket, like that of a man of rank, was buttoned over her +bust and fitted closely to her slender waist. The edge of a +stand-up collar, stiff with gold embroidery, rubbed her cheek. +She had no bracelets, no anklets, and although dressed +practically in man's clothes, had about her person no weapon of +any sort. Her arms hung down in exceedingly tight sleeves slit a +little way up from the wrist, gold-braided and with a row of +small gold buttons. She walked, brown and alert, all of a piece, +with short steps, the eyes lively in an impassive little face, +the arched mouth closed firmly; and her whole person breathed in +its rigid grace the fiery gravity of youth at the beginning of +the task of life--at the beginning of beliefs and hopes. + +This was the day of Lingard's arrival upon the coast, but, as is +known, the brig, delayed by the calm, did not appear in sight of +the shallows till the morning was far advanced. Disappointed in +their hope to see the expected sail shining in the first rays of +the rising sun, the man and the woman, without attempting to +relight the fire, lounged on their sleeping mats. At their feet a +common canoe, hauled out of the water, was, for more security, +moored by a grass rope to the shaft of a long spear planted +firmly on the white beach, and the incoming tide lapped +monotonously against its stern. + +The girl, twisting up her black hair, fastened it with slender +wooden pins. The man, reclining at full length, had made room on +his mat for the gun--as one would do for a friend--and, supported +on his elbow, looked toward the yacht with eyes whose fixed +dreaminess like a transparent veil would show the slow passage of +every gloomy thought by deepening gradually into a sombre stare. + +"We have seen three sunrises on this islet, and no friend came +from the sea," he said without changing his attitude, with his +back toward the girl who sat on the other side of the cold +embers. + +"Yes; and the moon is waning," she answered in a low voice. "The +moon is waning. Yet he promised to be here when the nights are +light and the water covers the sandbanks as far as the bushes." + +"The traveller knows the time of his setting out, but not the +time of his return," observed the man, calmly. + +The girl sighed. + +"The nights of waiting are long," she murmured. + +"And sometimes they are vain," said the man with the same +composure. "Perhaps he will never return." + +"Why?" exclaimed the girl. + +"The road is long and the heart may grow cold," was the answer in +a quiet voice. "If he does not return it is because he has +forgotten." + +"Oh, Hassim, it is because he is dead," cried the girl, +indignantly. + +The man, looking fixedly to seaward, smiled at the ardour of her +tone. + +They were brother and sister, and though very much alike, the +family resemblance was lost in the more general traits common to +the whole race. + +They were natives of Wajo and it is a common saying amongst the +Malay race that to be a successful traveller and trader a man +must have some Wajo blood in his veins. And with those people +trading, which means also travelling afar, is a romantic and an +honourable occupation. The trader must possess an adventurous +spirit and a keen understanding; he should have the fearlessness +of youth and the sagacity of age; he should be diplomatic and +courageous, so as to secure the favour of the great and inspire +fear in evil-doers. + +These qualities naturally are not expected in a shopkeeper or a +Chinaman pedlar; they are considered indispensable only for a man +who, of noble birth and perhaps related to the ruler of his own +country, wanders over the seas in a craft of his own and with +many followers; carries from island to island important news as +well as merchandise; who may be trusted with secret messages and +valuable goods; a man who, in short, is as ready to intrigue and +fight as to buy and sell. Such is the ideal trader of Wajo. + +Trading, thus understood, was the occupation of ambitious men who +played an occult but important part in all those national +risings, religious disturbances, and also in the organized +piratical movements on a large scale which, during the first half +of the last century, affected the fate of more than one native +dynasty and, for a few years at least, seriously endangered the +Dutch rule in the East. When, at the cost of much blood and gold, +a comparative peace had been imposed on the islands the same +occupation, though shorn of its glorious possibilities, remained +attractive for the most adventurous of a restless race. The +younger sons and relations of many a native ruler traversed the +seas of the Archipelago, visited the innumerable and little-known +islands, and the then practically unknown shores of New Guinea; +every spot where European trade had not penetrated--from Aru to +Atjeh, from Sumbawa to Palawan. + + + +II + +It was in the most unknown perhaps of such spots, a small bay on +the coast of New Guinea, that young Pata Hassim, the nephew of +one of the greatest chiefs of Wajo, met Lingard for the first +time. + +He was a trader after the Wajo manner, and in a stout sea-going +prau armed with two guns and manned by young men who were related +to his family by blood or dependence, had come in there to buy +some birds of paradise skins for the old Sultan of Ternate; a +risky expedition undertaken not in the way of business but as a +matter of courtesy toward the aged Sultan who had entertained him +sumptuously in that dismal brick palace at Ternate for a month or +more. + +While lying off the village, very much on his guard, waiting for +the skins and negotiating with the treacherous coast-savages who +are the go-betweens in that trade, Hassim saw one morning +Lingard's brig come to an anchor in the bay, and shortly +afterward observed a white man of great stature with a beard that +shone like gold, land from a boat and stroll on unarmed, though +followed by four Malays of the brig's crew, toward the native +village. + +Hassim was struck with wonder and amazement at the cool +recklessness of such a proceeding; and, after; in true Malay +fashion, discussing with his people for an hour or so the urgency +of the case, he also landed, but well escorted and armed, with +the intention of going to see what would happen. + +The affair really was very simple, "such as"--Lingard would +say--"such as might have happened to anybody." He went ashore +with the intention to look for some stream where he could +conveniently replenish his water casks, this being really the +motive which had induced him to enter the bay. + +While, with his men close by and surrounded by a mop-headed, +sooty crowd, he was showing a few cotton handkerchiefs, and +trying to explain by signs the object of his landing, a spear, +lunged from behind, grazed his neck. Probably the Papuan wanted +only to ascertain whether such a creature could be killed or +hurt, and most likely firmly believed that it could not; but one +of Lingard's seamen at once retaliated by striking at the +experimenting savage with his parang--three such choppers brought +for the purpose of clearing the bush, if necessary, being all the +weapons the party from the brig possessed. + +A deadly tumult ensued with such suddenness that Lingard, turning +round swiftly, saw his defender, already speared in three places, +fall forward at his feet. Wasub, who was there, and afterward +told the story once a week on an average, used to horrify his +hearers by showing how the man blinked his eyes quickly before he +fell. Lingard was unarmed. To the end of his life he remained +incorrigibly reckless in that respect, explaining that he was +"much too quick tempered to carry firearms on the chance of a +row. And if put to it," he argued, "I can make shift to kill a +man with my fist anyhow; and then--don't ye see--you know what +you're doing and are not so apt to start a trouble from sheer +temper or funk--see?" + +In this case he did his best to kill a man with a blow from the +shoulder and catching up another by the middle flung him at the +naked, wild crowd. "He hurled men about as the wind hurls broken +boughs. + +He made a broad way through our enemies!" related Wasub in his +jerky voice. It is more probable that Lingard's quick movements +and the amazing aspect of such a strange being caused the +warriors to fall back before his rush. + +Taking instant advantage of their surprise and fear, Lingard, +followed by his men, dashed along the kind of ruinous jetty +leading to the village which was erected as usual over the water. +They darted into one of the miserable huts built of rotten mats +and bits of decayed canoes, and in this shelter showing daylight +through all its sides, they had time to draw breath and realize +that their position was not much improved. + +The women and children screaming had cleared out into the bush, +while at the shore end of the jetty the warriors capered and +yelled, preparing for a general attack. Lingard noticed with +mortification that his boat-keeper apparently had lost his head, +for, instead of swimming off to the ship to give the alarm, as he +was perfectly able to do, the man actually struck out for a small +rock a hundred yards away and was frantically trying to climb up +its perpendicular side. The tide being out, to jump into the +horrible mud under the houses would have been almost certain +death. Nothing remained therefore--since the miserable dwelling +would not have withstood a vigorous kick, let alone a siege --but +to rush back on shore and regain possession of the boat. To this +Lingard made up his mind quickly and, arming himself with a +crooked stick he found under his hand, sallied forth at the head +of his three men. As he bounded along, far in advance, he had +just time to perceive clearly the desperate nature of the +undertaking, when he heard two shots fired to his right. The +solid mass of black bodies and frizzly heads in front of him +wavered and broke up. They did not run away, however. + +Lingard pursued his course, but now with that thrill of +exultation which even a faint prospect of success inspires in a +sanguine man. He heard a shout of many voices far off, then there +was another report of a shot, and a musket ball fired at long +range spurted a tiny jet of sand between him and his wild +enemies. His next bound would have carried him into their midst +had they awaited his onset, but his uplifted arm found nothing to +strike. Black backs were leaping high or gliding horizontally +through the grass toward the edge of the bush. + +He flung his stick at the nearest pair of black shoulders and +stopped short. The tall grasses swayed themselves into a rest, a +chorus of yells and piercing shrieks died out in a dismal howl, +and all at once the wooded shores and the blue bay seemed to fall +under the spell of a luminous stillness. The change was as +startling as the awakening from a dream. The sudden silence +struck Lingard as amazing. + +He broke it by lifting his voice in a stentorian shout, which +arrested the pursuit of his men. They retired reluctantly, +glaring back angrily at the wall of a jungle where not a single +leaf stirred. The strangers, whose opportune appearance had +decided the issue of that adventure, did not attempt to join in +the pursuit but halted in a compact body on the ground lately +occupied by the savages. + +Lingard and the young leader of the Wajo traders met in the +splendid light of noonday, and amidst the attentive silence of +their followers, on the very spot where the Malay seaman had lost +his life. Lingard, striding up from one side, thrust out his open +palm; Hassim responded at once to the frank gesture and they +exchanged their first hand-clasp over the prostrate body, as if +fate had already exacted the price of a death for the most +ominous of her gifts--the gift of friendship that sometimes +contains the whole good or evil of a life. + +"I'll never forget this day," cried Lingard in a hearty tone; and +the other smiled quietly. + +Then after a short pause--"Will you burn the village for +vengeance?" asked the Malay with a quick glance down at the dead +Lascar who, on his face and with stretched arms, seemed to cling +desperately to that earth of which he had known so little. + +Lingard hesitated. + +"No," he said, at last. "It would do good to no one." + +"True," said Hassim, gently, "but was this man your debtor--a +slave?" + +"Slave?" cried Lingard. "This is an English brig. Slave? No. A +free man like myself." + +"Hai. He is indeed free now," muttered the Malay with another +glance downward. "But who will pay the bereaved for his life?" + +"If there is anywhere a woman or child belonging to him, I--my +serang would know--I shall seek them out," cried Lingard, +remorsefully. + +"You speak like a chief," said Hassim, "only our great men do not +go to battle with naked hands. O you white men! O the valour of +you white men!" + +"It was folly, pure folly," protested Lingard, "and this poor +fellow has paid for it." + +"He could not avoid his destiny," murmured the Malay. "It is in +my mind my trading is finished now in this place," he added, +cheerfully. + +Lingard expressed his regret. + +"It is no matter, it is no matter," assured the other +courteously, and after Lingard had given a pressing invitation +for Hassim and his two companions of high rank to visit the brig, +the two parties separated. + +The evening was calm when the Malay craft left its berth near the +shore and was rowed slowly across the bay to Lingard's anchorage. +The end of a stout line was thrown on board, and that night the +white man's brig and the brown man's prau swung together to the +same anchor. + +The sun setting to seaward shot its last rays between the +headlands, when the body of the killed Lascar, wrapped up +decently in a white sheet, according to Mohammedan usage, was +lowered gently below the still waters of the bay upon which his +curious glances, only a few hours before, had rested for the +first time. At the moment the dead man, released from slip-ropes, +disappeared without a ripple before the eyes of his shipmates, +the bright flash and the heavy report of the brig's bow gun were +succeeded by the muttering echoes of the encircling shores and by +the loud cries of sea birds that, wheeling in clouds, seemed to +scream after the departing seaman a wild and eternal good-bye. +The master of the brig, making his way aft with hanging head, was +followed by low murmurs of pleased surprise from his crew as well +as from the strangers who crowded the main deck. In such acts +performed simply, from conviction, what may be called the +romantic side of the man's nature came out; that responsive +sensitiveness to the shadowy appeals made by life and death, +which is the groundwork of a chivalrous character. + +Lingard entertained his three visitors far into the night. A +sheep from the brig's sea stock was given to the men of the prau, +while in the cabin, Hassim and his two friends, sitting in a row +on the stern settee, looked very splendid with costly metals and +flawed jewels. The talk conducted with hearty friendship on +Lingard's part, and on the part of the Malays with the well-bred +air of discreet courtesy, which is natural to the better class of +that people, touched upon many subjects and, in the end, drifted +to politics. + +"It is in my mind that you are a powerful man in your own +country," said Hassim, with a circular glance at the cuddy. + +"My country is upon a far-away sea where the light breezes are as +strong as the winds of the rainy weather here," said Lingard; and +there were low exclamations of wonder. "I left it very young, and +I don't know about my power there where great men alone are as +numerous as the poor people in all your islands, Tuan Hassim. But +here," he continued, "here, which is also my country--being an +English craft and worthy of it, too--I am powerful enough. In +fact, I am Rajah here. This bit of my country is all my own." + +The visitors were impressed, exchanged meaning glances, nodded at +each other. + +"Good, good," said Hassim at last, with a smile. "You carry your +country and your power with you over the sea. A Rajah upon the +sea. Good!" + +Lingard laughed thunderously while the others looked amused. + +"Your country is very powerful--we know," began again Hassim +after a pause, "but is it stronger than the country of the Dutch +who steal our land?" + +"Stronger?" cried Lingard. He opened a broad palm. "Stronger? We +could take them in our hand like this--" and he closed his +fingers triumphantly. + +"And do you make them pay tribute for their land?" enquired +Hassim with eagerness. + +"No," answered Lingard in a sobered tone; "this, Tuan Hassim, you +see, is not the custom of white men. We could, of course--but it +is not the custom." + +"Is it not?" said the other with a sceptical smile. "They are +stronger than we are and they want tribute from us. And sometimes +they get it--even from Wajo where every man is free and wears a +kris." + +There was a period of dead silence while Lingard looked +thoughtful and the Malays gazed stonily at nothing. + +"But we burn our powder amongst ourselves," went on Hassim, +gently, "and blunt our weapons upon one another." + +He sighed, paused, and then changing to an easy tone began to +urge Lingard to visit Wajo "for trade and to see friends," he +said, laying his hand on his breast and inclining his body +slightly. + +"Aye. To trade with friends," cried Lingard with a laugh, "for +such a ship"--he waved his arm--"for such a vessel as this is +like a household where there are many behind the curtain. It is +as costly as a wife and children." + +The guests rose and took their leave. + +"You fired three shots for me, Panglima Hassim," said Lingard, +seriously, "and I have had three barrels of powder put on board +your prau; one for each shot. But we are not quits." + +The Malay's eyes glittered with pleasure. + +"This is indeed a friend's gift. Come to see me in my country!" + +"I promise," said Lingard, "to see you--some day." + +The calm surface of the bay reflected the glorious night sky, and +the brig with the prau riding astern seemed to be suspended +amongst the stars in a peace that was almost unearthly in the +perfection of its unstirring silence. The last hand-shakes were +exchanged on deck, and the Malays went aboard their own craft. +Next morning, when a breeze sprang up soon after sunrise, the +brig and the prau left the bay together. When clear of the land +Lingard made all sail and sheered alongside to say good-bye +before parting company--the brig, of course, sailing three feet +to the prau's one. Hassim stood on the high deck aft. + +"Prosperous road," hailed Lingard. + +"Remember the promise!" shouted the other. "And come soon!" he +went on, raising his voice as the brig forged past. "Come +soon--lest what perhaps is written should come to pass!" + +The brig shot ahead. + +"What?" yelled Lingard in a puzzled tone, "what's written?" + +He listened. And floating over the water came faintly the words: + +"No one knows!" + + + +III + +"My word! I couldn't help liking the chap," would shout Lingard +when telling the story; and looking around at the eyes that +glittered at him through the smoke of cheroots, this Brixham +trawler-boy, afterward a youth in colliers, deep-water man, +gold-digger, owner and commander of "the finest brig afloat," +knew that by his listeners--seamen, traders, adventurers like +himself--this was accepted not as the expression of a feeling, +but as the highest commendation he could give his Malay friend. + +"By heavens! I shall go to Wajo!" he cried, and a semicircle of +heads nodded grave approbation while a slightly ironical voice +said deliberately--"You are a made man, Tom, if you get on the +right side of that Rajah of yours." + +"Go in--and look out for yourself," cried another with a laugh. + +A little professional jealousy was unavoidable, Wajo, on account +of its chronic state of disturbance, being closed to the white +traders; but there was no real ill-will in the banter of these +men, who, rising with handshakes, dropped off one by one. Lingard +went straight aboard his vessel and, till morning, walked the +poop of the brig with measured steps. The riding lights of ships +twinkled all round him; the lights ashore twinkled in rows, the +stars twinkled above his head in a black sky; and reflected in +the black water of the roadstead twinkled far below his feet. And +all these innumerable and shining points were utterly lost in the +immense darkness. Once he heard faintly the rumbling chain of +some vessel coming to an anchor far away somewhere outside the +official limits of the harbour. A stranger to the port--thought +Lingard--one of us would have stood right in. Perhaps a ship from +home? And he felt strangely touched at the thought of that ship, +weary with months of wandering, and daring not to approach the +place of rest. At sunrise, while the big ship from the West, her +sides streaked with rust and grey with the salt of the sea, was +moving slowly in to take up a berth near the shore, Lingard left +the roadstead on his way to the eastward. + +A heavy gulf thunderstorm was raging, when after a long passage +and at the end of a sultry calm day, wasted in drifting +helplessly in sight of his destination, Lingard, taking advantage +of fitful gusts of wind, approached the shores of Wajo. With +characteristic audacity, he held on his way, closing in with a +coast to which he was a stranger, and on a night that would have +appalled any other man; while at every dazzling flash, Hassim's +native land seemed to leap nearer at the brig--and disappear +instantly as though it had crouched low for the next spring out +of an impenetrable darkness. During the long day of the calm, he +had obtained from the deck and from aloft, such good views of the +coast, and had noted the lay of the land and the position of the +dangers so carefully that, though at the precise moment when he +gave the order to let go the anchor, he had been for some time +able to see no further than if his head had been wrapped in a +woollen blanket, yet the next flickering bluish flash showed him +the brig, anchored almost exactly where he had judged her to be, +off a narrow white beach near the mouth of a river. + +He could see on the shore a high cluster of bamboo huts perched +upon piles, a small grove of tall palms all bowed together before +the blast like stalks of grass, something that might have been a +palisade of pointed stakes near the water, and far off, a sombre +background resembling an immense wall--the forest-clad hills. +Next moment, all this vanished utterly from his sight, as if +annihilated and, before he had time to turn away, came back to +view with a sudden crash, appearing unscathed and motionless +under hooked darts of flame, like some legendary country of +immortals, withstanding the wrath and fire of Heaven. + +Made uneasy by the nature of his holding ground, and fearing that +in one of the terrific off-shore gusts the brig would start her +anchor, Lingard remained on deck to watch over the safety of his +vessel. With one hand upon the lead-line which would give him +instant warning of the brig beginning to drag, he stood by the +rail, most of the time deafened and blinded, but also fascinated, +by the repeated swift visions of an unknown shore, a sight always +so inspiring, as much perhaps by its vague suggestion of danger +as by the hopes of success it never fails to awaken in the heart +of a true adventurer. And its immutable aspect of profound and +still repose, seen thus under streams of fire and in the midst of +a violent uproar, made it appear inconceivably mysterious and +amazing. + +Between the squalls there were short moments of calm, while now +and then even the thunder would cease as if to draw breath. +During one of those intervals. Lingard, tired and sleepy, was +beginning to doze where he stood, when suddenly it occurred to +him that, somewhere below, the sea had spoken in a human voice. +It had said, "Praise be to God--" and the voice sounded small, +clear, and confident, like the voice of a child speaking in a +cathedral. Lingard gave a start and thought--I've dreamed +this--and directly the sea said very close to him, "Give a rope." + +The thunder growled wickedly, and Lingard, after shouting to the +men on deck, peered down at the water, until at last he made out +floating close alongside the upturned face of a man with staring +eyes that gleamed at him and then blinked quickly to a flash of +lightning. By that time all hands in the brig were wildly active +and many ropes-ends had been thrown over. Then together with a +gust of wind, and, as if blown on board, a man tumbled over the +rail and fell all in a heap upon the deck. Before any one had the +time to pick him up, he leaped to his feet, causing the people +around him to step back hurriedly. A sinister blue glare showed +the bewildered faces and the petrified attitudes of men +completely deafened by the accompanying peal of thunder. After a +time, as if to beings plunged in the abyss of eternal silence, +there came to their ears an unfamiliar thin, far-away voice +saying: + +"I seek the white man." + +"Here," cried Lingard. Then, when he had the stranger, dripping +and naked but for a soaked waistcloth, under the lamp of the +cabin, he said, "I don't know you." + +"My name is Jaffir, and I come from Pata Hassim, who is my chief +and your friend. Do you know this?" + +He held up a thick gold ring, set with a fairly good emerald. + +"I have seen it before on the Rajah's finger," said Lingard, +looking very grave. + +"It is the witness of the truth I speak--the message from Hassim +is--'Depart and forget!'" + +"I don't forget," said Lingard, slowly. "I am not that kind of +man. What folly is this?" + +It is unnecessary to give at full length the story told by +Jaffir. It appears that on his return home, after the meeting +with Lingard, Hassim found his relative dying and a strong party +formed to oppose his rightful successor. The old Rajah Tulla died +late at night and --as Jaffir put it--before the sun rose there +were already blows exchanged in the courtyard of the ruler's +dalam. This was the preliminary fight of a civil war, fostered by +foreign intrigues; a war of jungle and river, of assaulted +stockades and forest ambushes. In this contest, both parties-- +according to Jaffir--displayed great courage, and one of them an +unswerving devotion to what, almost from the first, was a lost +cause. Before a month elapsed Hassim, though still chief of an +armed band, was already a fugitive. He kept up the struggle, +however, with some vague notion that Lingard's arrival would turn +the tide. + +"For weeks we lived on wild rice; for days we fought with nothing +but water in our bellies," declaimed Jaffir in the tone of a true +fire-eater. + +And then he went on to relate, how, driven steadily down to the +sea, Hassim, with a small band of followers, had been for days +holding the stockade by the waterside. + +"But every night some men disappeared," confessed Jaffir. "They +were weary and hungry and they went to eat with their enemies. +We are only ten now--ten men and a woman with the heart of a man, +who are tonight starving, and to-morrow shall die swiftly. We saw +your ship afar all day; but you have come too late. And for fear +of treachery and lest harm should befall you--his friend--the +Rajah gave me the ring and I crept on my stomach over the sand, +and I swam in the night--and I, Jaffir, the best swimmer in Wajo, +and the slave of Hassim, tell you--his message to you is 'Depart +and forget'--and this is his gift--take!" + +He caught hold suddenly of Lingard's hand, thrust roughly into it +the ring, and then for the first time looked round the cabin with +wondering but fearless eyes. They lingered over the semicircle of +bayonets and rested fondly on musket-racks. He grunted in +admiration. + +"Ya-wa, this is strength!" he murmured as if to himself. "But it +has come too late." + +"Perhaps not," cried Lingard. + +"Too late," said Jaffir, "we are ten only, and at sunrise we go +out to die." He went to the cabin door and hesitated there with a +puzzled air, being unused to locks and door handles. + +"What are you going to do?" asked Lingard. + +"I shall swim back," replied Jaffir. "The message is spoken and +the night can not last forever." + +"You can stop with me," said Lingard, looking at the man +searchingly. + +"Hassim waits," was the curt answer. + +'Did he tell you to return?" asked Lingard. + +"No! What need?" said the other in a surprised tone. + +Lingard seized his hand impulsively. + +"If I had ten men like you!" he cried. + +"We are ten, but they are twenty to one," said Jaffir, simply. + +Lingard opened the door. + +"Do you want anything that a man can give?" he asked. + +The Malay had a moment of hesitation, and Lingard noticed the +sunken eyes, the prominent ribs, and the worn-out look of the +man. + +"Speak out," he urged with a smile; "the bearer of a gift must +have a reward." + +"A drink of water and a handful of rice for strength to reach the +shore," said Jaffir sturdily. "For over there"--he tossed his +head--"we had nothing to eat to-day." + +"You shall have it--give it to you with my own hands," muttered +Lingard. + +He did so, and thus lowered himself in Jaffir's estimation for a +time. While the messenger, squatting on the floor, ate without +haste but with considerable earnestness, Lingard thought out a +plan of action. In his ignorance as to the true state of affairs +in the country, to save Hassim from the immediate danger of his +position was all that he could reasonably attempt. To that end +Lingard proposed to swing out his long-boat and send her close +inshore to take off Hassim and his men. He knew enough of Malays +to feel sure that on such a night the besiegers, now certain of +success, and being, Jaffir said, in possession of everything that +could float, would not be very vigilant, especially on the sea +front of the stockade. The very fact of Jaffir having managed to +swim off undetected proved that much. The brig's boat could--when +the frequency of lightning abated--approach unseen close to the +beach, and the defeated party, either stealing out one by one or +making a rush in a body, would embark and be received in the +brig. + +This plan was explained to Jaffir, who heard it without the +slightest mark of interest, being apparently too busy eating. +When the last grain of rice was gone, he stood up, took a long +pull at the water bottle, muttered: "I hear. Good. I will tell +Hassim," and tightening the rag round his loins, prepared to go. +"Give me time to swim ashore," he said, "and when the boat +starts, put another light beside the one that burns now like a +star above your vessel. We shall see and understand. And don't +send the boat till there is less lightning: a boat is bigger than +a man in the water. Tell the rowers to pull for the palm-grove +and cease when an oar, thrust down with a strong arm, touches the +bottom. Very soon they will hear our hail; but if no one comes +they must go away before daylight. A chief may prefer death to +life, and we who are left are all of true heart. Do you +understand, O big man?" + +"The chap has plenty of sense," muttered Lingard to himself, and +when they stood side by side on the deck, he said: " But there +may be enemies on the beach, O Jaffir, and they also may shout to +deceive my men. So let your hail be Lightning! Will you +remember?" + +For a time Jaffir seemed to be choking. + +"Lit-ing! Is that right? I say--is that right, O strong man?" +Next moment he appeared upright and shadowy on the rail. + +"Yes. That's right. Go now," said Lingard, and Jaffir leaped off, +becoming invisible long before he struck the water. Then there +was a splash; after a while a spluttering voice cried faintly, +"Lit-ing! Ah, ha!" and suddenly the next thunder-squall burst +upon the coast. In the crashing flares of light Lingard had again +and again the quick vision of a white beach, the inclined +palm-trees of the grove, the stockade by the sea, the forest far +away: a vast landscape mysterious and still--Hassim's native +country sleeping unmoved under the wrath and fire of Heaven. + + + +IV + +A Traveller visiting Wajo to-day may, if he deserves the +confidence of the common people, hear the traditional account of +the last civil war, together with the legend of a chief and his +sister, whose mother had been a great princess suspected of +sorcery and on her death-bed had communicated to these two the +secrets of the art of magic. The chief's sister especially, "with +the aspect of a child and the fearlessness of a great fighter," +became skilled in casting spells. They were defeated by the son +of their uncle, because--will explain the narrator simply--"The +courage of us Wajo people is so great that magic can do nothing +against it. I fought in that war. We had them with their backs to +the sea." And then he will go on to relate in an awed tone how on +a certain night "when there was such a thunderstorm as has been +never heard of before or since" a ship, resembling the ships of +white men, appeared off the coast, "as though she had sailed down +from the clouds. She moved," he will affirm, "with her sails +bellying against the wind; in size she was like an island; the +lightning played between her masts which were as high as the +summits of mountains; a star burned low through the clouds above +her. We knew it for a star at once because no flame of man's +kindling could have endured the wind and rain of that night. It +was such a night that we on the watch hardly dared look upon the +sea. The heavy rain was beating down our eyelids. And when day +came, the ship was nowhere to be seen, and in the stockade where +the day before there were a hundred or more at our mercy, there +was no one. The chief, Hassim, was gone, and the lady who was a +princess in the country--and nobody knows what became of them +from that day to this. Sometimes traders from our parts talk of +having heard of them here, and heard of them there, but these are +the lies of men who go afar for gain. We who live in the country +believe that the ship sailed back into the clouds whence the +Lady's magic made her come. Did we not see the ship with our own +eyes? And as to Rajah Hassim and his sister, Mas Immada, some men +say one thing and some another, but God alone knows the truth." + +Such is the traditional account of Lingard's visit to the shores +of Boni. And the truth is he came and went the same night; for, +when the dawn broke on a cloudy sky the brig, under reefed canvas +and smothered in sprays, was storming along to the southward on +her way out of the Gulf. Lingard, watching over the rapid course +of his vessel, looked ahead with anxious eyes and more than once +asked himself with wonder, why, after all, was he thus pressing +her under all the sail she could carry. His hair was blown about +by the wind, his mind was full of care and the indistinct shapes +of many new thoughts, and under his feet, the obedient brig +dashed headlong from wave to wave. + +Her owner and commander did not know where he was going. That +adventurer had only a confused notion of being on the threshold +of a big adventure. There was something to be done, and he felt +he would have to do it. It was expected of him. The seas expected +it; the land expected it. Men also. The story of war and of +suffering; Jaffir's display of fidelity, the sight of Hassim and +his sister, the night, the tempest, the coast under streams of +fire--all this made one inspiring manifestation of a life calling +to him distinctly for interference. But what appealed to him most +was the silent, the complete, unquestioning, and apparently +uncurious, trust of these people. They came away from death +straight into his arms as it were, and remained in them passive +as though there had been no such thing as doubt or hope or +desire. This amazing unconcern seemed to put him under a heavy +load of obligation. + +He argued to himself that had not these defeated men expected +everything from him they could not have been so indifferent to +his action. Their dumb quietude stirred him more than the most +ardent pleading. Not a word, not a whisper, not a questioning +look even! They did not ask! It flattered him. He was also +rather glad of it, because if the unconscious part of him was +perfectly certain of its action, he, himself, did not know what +to do with those bruised and battered beings a playful fate had +delivered suddenly into his hands. + +He had received the fugitives personally, had helped some over +the rail; in the darkness, slashed about by lightning, he had +guessed that not one of them was unwounded, and in the midst of +tottering shapes he wondered how on earth they had managed to +reach the long-boat that had brought them off. He caught +unceremoniously in his arms the smallest of these shapes and +carried it into the cabin, then without looking at his light +burden ran up again on deck to get the brig under way. While +shouting out orders he was dimly aware of someone hovering near +his elbow. It was Hassim. + +"I am not ready for war," he explained, rapidly, over his +shoulder, "and to-morrow there may be no wind." Afterward for a +time he forgot everybody and everything while he conned the brig +through the few outlying dangers. But in half an hour, and +running off with the wind on the quarter, he was quite clear of +the coast and breathed freely. It was only then that he +approached two others on that poop where he was accustomed in +moments of difficulty to commune alone with his craft. Hassim had +called his sister out of the cabin; now and then Lingard could +see them with fierce distinctness, side by side, and with twined +arms, looking toward the mysterious country that seemed at every +flash to leap away farther from the brig--unscathed and fading. + +The thought uppermost in Lingard's mind was: "What on earth am I +going to do with them?" And no one seemed to care what he would +do. Jaffir with eight others quartered on the main hatch, looked +to each other's wounds and conversed interminably in low tones, +cheerful and quiet, like well-behaved children. Each of them had +saved his kris, but Lingard had to make a distribution of cotton +cloth out of his trade-goods. Whenever he passed by them, they +all looked after him gravely. Hassim and Immada lived in the +cuddy. The chief's sister took the air only in the evening and +those two could be heard every night, invisible and murmuring in +the shadows of the quarter-deck. Every Malay on board kept +respectfully away from them. + +Lingard, on the poop, listened to the soft voices, rising and +falling, in a melancholy cadence; sometimes the woman cried out +as if in anger or in pain. He would stop short. The sound of a +deep sigh would float up to him on the stillness of the night. +Attentive stars surrounded the wandering brig and on all sides +their light fell through a vast silence upon a noiseless sea. +Lingard would begin again to pace the deck, muttering to himself. + +"Belarab's the man for this job. His is the only place where I +can look for help, but I don't think I know enough to find it. I +wish I had old Jorgenson here--just for ten minutes." + +This Jorgenson knew things that had happened a long time ago, and +lived amongst men efficient in meeting the accidents of the day, +but who did not care what would happen to-morrow and who had no +time to remember yesterday. Strictly speaking, he did not live +amongst them. He only appeared there from time to time. He lived +in the native quarter, with a native woman, in a native house +standing in the middle of a plot of fenced ground where grew +plantains, and furnished only with mats, cooking pots, a queer +fishing net on two sticks, and a small mahogany case with a lock +and a silver plate engraved with the words "Captain H. C. +Jorgenson. Barque Wild Rose." + +It was like an inscription on a tomb. The Wild Rose was dead, and +so was Captain H. C. Jorgenson, and the sextant case was all that +was left of them. Old Jorgenson, gaunt and mute, would turn up at +meal times on board any trading vessel in the Roads, and the +stewards --Chinamen or mulattos--would sulkily put on an extra +plate without waiting for orders. When the seamen traders +foregathered noisily round a glittering cluster of bottles and +glasses on a lighted verandah, old Jorgenson would emerge up the +stairs as if from a dark sea, and, stepping up with a kind of +tottering jauntiness, would help himself in the first tumbler to +hand. + +"I drink to you all. No--no chair." + +He would stand silent over the talking group. His taciturnity was +as eloquent as the repeated warning of the slave of the feast. +His flesh had gone the way of all flesh, his spirit had sunk in +the turmoil of his past, but his immense and bony frame survived +as if made of iron. His hands trembled but his eyes were steady. +He was supposed to know details about the end of mysterious men +and of mysterious enterprises. He was an evident failure himself, +but he was believed to know secrets that would make the fortune +of any man; yet there was also a general impression that his +knowledge was not of that nature which would make it profitable +for a moderately prudent person. + +This powerful skeleton, dressed in faded blue serge and without +any kind of linen, existed anyhow. Sometimes, if offered the job, +he piloted a home ship through the Straits of Rhio, after, +however, assuring the captain: + +"You don't want a pilot; a man could go through with his eyes +shut. But if you want me, I'll come. Ten dollars." + +Then, after seeing his charge clear of the last island of the +group he would go back thirty miles in a canoe, with two old +Malays who seemed to be in some way his followers. To travel +thirty miles at sea under the equatorial sun and in a cranky +dug-out where once down you must not move, is an achievement that +requires the endurance of a fakir and the virtue of a salamander. +Ten dollars was cheap and generally he was in demand. When times +were hard he would borrow five dollars from any of the +adventurers with the remark: + +"I can't pay you back, very soon, but the girl must eat, and if +you want to know anything, I can tell you." + +It was remarkable that nobody ever smiled at that "anything." The +usual thing was to say: + +"Thank you, old man; when I am pushed for a bit of information +I'll come to you." + +Jorgenson nodded then and would say: "Remember that unless you +young chaps are like we men who ranged about here years ago, what +I could tell you would be worse than poison." + +It was from Jorgenson, who had his favourites with whom he was +less silent, that Lingard had heard of Darat-es-Salam, the "Shore +of Refuge." Jorgenson had, as he expressed it, "known the inside +of that country just after the high old times when the white-clad +Padris preached and fought all over Sumatra till the Dutch shook +in their shoes." Only he did not say "shook" and "shoes" but the +above paraphrase conveys well enough his contemptuous meaning. +Lingard tried now to remember and piece together the practical +bits of old Jorgenson's amazing tales; but all that had remained +with him was an approximate idea of the locality and a very +strong but confused notion of the dangerous nature of its +approaches. He hesitated, and the brig, answering in her +movements to the state of the man's mind, lingered on the road, +seemed to hesitate also, swinging this way and that on the days +of calm. + +It was just because of that hesitation that a big New York ship, +loaded with oil in cases for Japan, and passing through the +Billiton passage, sighted one morning a very smart brig being +hove-to right in the fair-way and a little to the east of +Carimata. The lank skipper, in a frock-coat, and the big mate +with heavy moustaches, judged her almost too pretty for a +Britisher, and wondered at the man on board laying his topsail to +the mast for no reason that they could see. The big ship's sails +fanned her along, flapping in the light air, and when the brig +was last seen far astern she had still her mainyard aback as if +waiting for someone. But when, next day, a London tea-clipper +passed on the same track, she saw no pretty brig hesitating, all +white and still at the parting of the ways. All that night +Lingard had talked with Hassim while the stars streamed from east +to west like an immense river of sparks above their heads. Immada +listened, sometimes exclaiming low, sometimes holding her breath. +She clapped her hands once. A faint dawn appeared. + +"You shall be treated like my father in the country," Hassim was +saying. A heavy dew dripped off the rigging and the darkened +sails were black on the pale azure of the sky. "You shall be the +father who advises for good-- " + +"I shall be a steady friend, and as a friend I want to be +treated--no more," said Lingard. "Take back your ring." + +"Why do you scorn my gift?" asked Hassim, with a sad and ironic +smile. + +"Take it," said Lingard. "It is still mine. How can I forget +that, when facing death, you thought of my safety? There are many +dangers before us. We shall be often separated--to work better +for the same end. If ever you and Immada need help at once and I +am within reach, send me a message with this ring and if I am +alive I will not fail you." He looked around at the pale +daybreak. "I shall talk to Belarab straight--like we whites do. I +have never seen him, but I am a strong man. Belarab must help us +to reconquer your country and when our end is attained I won't +let him eat you up." + +Hassim took the ring and inclined his head. + +"It's time for us to be moving," said Lingard. He felt a slight +tug at his sleeve. He looked back and caught Immada in the act of +pressing her forehead to the grey flannel. "Don't, child!" he +said, softly. + +The sun rose above the faint blue line of the Shore of Refuge. + +The hesitation was over. The man and the vessel, working in +accord, had found their way to the faint blue shore. Before the +sun had descended half-way to its rest the brig was anchored +within a gunshot of the slimy mangroves, in a place where for a +hundred years or more no white man's vessel had been entrusted to +the hold of the bottom. The adventurers of two centuries ago had +no doubt known of that anchorage for they were very ignorant and +incomparably audacious. If it is true, as some say, that the +spirits of the dead haunt the places where the living have sinned +and toiled, then they might have seen a white long-boat, pulled +by eight oars and steered by a man sunburnt and bearded, a +cabbage-leaf hat on head, and pistols in his belt, skirting the +black mud, full of twisted roots, in search of a likely opening. + +Creek after creek was passed and the boat crept on slowly like a +monstrous water-spider with a big body and eight slender legs. . +. . Did you follow with your ghostly eyes the quest of this +obscure adventurer of yesterday, you shades of forgotten +adventurers who, in leather jerkins and sweating under steel +helmets, attacked with long rapiers the palisades of the strange +heathen, or, musket on shoulder and match in cock, guarded timber +blockhouses built upon the banks of rivers that command good +trade? You, who, wearied with the toil of fighting, slept wrapped +in frieze mantles on the sand of quiet beaches, dreaming of +fabulous diamonds and of a far-off home. + +"Here's an opening," said Lingard to Hassim, who sat at his side, +just as the sun was setting away to his left. "Here's an opening +big enough for a ship. It's the entrance we are looking for, I +believe. We shall pull all night up this creek if necessary and +it's the very devil if we don't come upon Belarab's lair before +daylight." + +He shoved the tiller hard over and the boat, swerving sharply, +vanished from the coast. + +And perhaps the ghosts of old adventurers nodded wisely their +ghostly heads and exchanged the ghost of a wistful smile. + + + +V + +"What's the matter with King Tom of late?" would ask someone +when, all the cards in a heap on the table, the traders lying +back in their chairs took a spell from a hard gamble. + +"Tom has learned to hold his tongue, he must be up to some dam' +good thing," opined another; while a man with hooked features and +of German extraction who was supposed to be agent for a Dutch +crockery house--the famous "Sphinx" mark--broke in resentfully: + +"Nefer mind him, shentlemens, he's matt, matt as a Marsh Hase. +Dree monats ago I call on board his prig to talk pizness. And he +says like dis--'Glear oudt.' 'Vat for?' I say. 'Glear oudt before +I shuck you oferboard.' Gott-for-dam! Iss dat the vay to talk +pizness? I vant sell him ein liddle case first chop grockery for +trade and--" + +"Ha, ha, ha! I don't blame Tom," interrupted the owner of a +pearling schooner, who had come into the Roads for stores. "Why, +Mosey, there isn't a mangy cannibal left in the whole of New +Guinea that hasn't got a cup and saucer of your providing. You've +flooded the market, savee?" + +Jorgenson stood by, a skeleton at the gaming table. + +"Because you are a Dutch spy," he said, suddenly, in an awful +tone. + +The agent of the Sphinx mark jumped up in a sudden fury. + +"Vat? Vat? Shentlemens, you all know me!" Not a muscle moved in +the faces around. "Know me," he stammered with wet lips. "Vat, +funf year--berfegtly acquaint--grockery-- Verfluchte sponsher. +Ich? Spy. Vat for spy? Vordamte English pedlars!" + +The door slammed. "Is that so?" asked a New England voice. "Why +don't you let daylight into him?" + +"Oh, we can't do that here," murmured one of the players. "Your +deal, Trench, let us get on." + +"Can't you?" drawled the New England voice. "You law-abiding, +get-a-summons, act-of--parliament lot of sons of Belial--can't +you? Now, look a-here, these Colt pistols I am selling--" He took +the pearler aside and could be heard talking earnestly in the +corner. "See--you load--and--see?" There were rapid clicks. +"Simple, isn't it? And if any trouble--say with your +divers"--CLICK, CLICK, CLICK--"Through and through--like a +sieve--warranted to cure the worst kind of cussedness in any +nigger. Yes, siree! A case of twenty-four or single specimens--as +you like. No? Shot-guns--rifles? No! Waal, I guess you're of no +use to me, but I could do a deal with that Tom--what d'ye call +him? Where d'ye catch him? Everywhere--eh? Waal--that's nowhere. +But I shall find him some day--yes, siree." + +Jorgenson, utterly disregarded, looked down dreamily at the +falling cards. "Spy--I tell you," he muttered to himself. "If you +want to know anything, ask me." + +When Lingard returned from Wajo--after an uncommonly long +absence--everyone remarked a great change. He was less talkative +and not so noisy, he was still hospitable but his hospitality was +less expansive, and the man who was never so happy as when +discussing impossibly wild projects with half a dozen congenial +spirits often showed a disinclination to meet his best friends. +In a word, he returned much less of a good fellow than he went +away. His visits to the Settlements were not less frequent, but +much shorter; and when there he was always in a hurry to be gone. + +During two years the brig had, in her way, as hard a life of it +as the man. Swift and trim she flitted amongst the islands of +little known groups. She could be descried afar from lonely +headlands, a white speck travelling fast over the blue sea; the +apathetic keepers of rare lighthouses dotting the great highway +to the east came to know the cut of her topsails. They saw her +passing east, passing west. They had faint glimpses of her flying +with masts aslant in the mist of a rain-squall, or could observe +her at leisure, upright and with shivering sails, forging ahead +through a long day of unsteady airs. Men saw her battling with a +heavy monsoon in the Bay of Bengal, lying becalmed in the Java +Sea, or gliding out suddenly from behind a point of land, +graceful and silent in the clear moonlight. Her activity was the +subject of excited but low-toned conversations, which would be +interrupted when her master appeared. + +"Here he is. Came in last night," whispered the gossiping group. + +Lingard did not see the covert glances of respect tempered by +irony; he nodded and passed on. + +"Hey, Tom! No time for a drink?" would shout someone. + +He would shake his head without looking back--far away already. + +Florid and burly he could be seen, for a day or two, getting out +of dusty gharries, striding in sunshine from the Occidental Bank +to the Harbour Office, crossing the Esplanade, disappearing down +a street of Chinese shops, while at his elbow and as tall as +himself, old Jorgenson paced along, lean and faded, obstinate and +disregarded, like a haunting spirit from the past eager to step +back into the life of men. + +Lingard ignored this wreck of an adventurer, sticking to him +closer than his shadow, and the other did not try to attract +attention. He waited patiently at the doors of offices, would +vanish at tiffin time, would invariably turn up again in the +evening and then he kept his place till Lingard went aboard for +the night. The police peons on duty looked disdainfully at the +phantom of Captain H. C. Jorgenson, Barque Wild Rose, wandering +on the silent quay or standing still for hours at the edge of the +sombre roadstead speckled by the anchor lights of ships--an +adventurous soul longing to recross the waters of oblivion. + +The sampan-men, sculling lazily homeward past the black hull of +the brig at anchor, could hear far into the night the drawl of +the New England voice escaping through the lifted panes of the +cabin skylight. Snatches of nasal sentences floated in the +stillness around the still craft. + +"Yes, siree! Mexican war rifles--good as new--six in a case--my +people in Baltimore--that's so. Hundred and twenty rounds thrown +in for each specimen--marked to suit your re-quirements. +Suppose--musical instruments, this side up with care--how's that +for your taste? No, no! Cash down--my people in Balt--Shooting +sea-gulls you say? Waal! It's a risky business--see here--ten per +cent. discount--it's out of my own pocket--" + +As time wore on, and nothing happened, at least nothing that one +could hear of, the excitement died out. Lingard's new attitude +was accepted as only "his way." There was nothing in it, +maintained some. Others dissented. A good deal of curiosity, +however, remained and the faint rumour of something big being in +preparation followed him into every harbour he went to, from +Rangoon to Hongkong. + +He felt nowhere so much at home as when his brig was anchored on +the inner side of the great stretch of shoals. The centre of his +life had shifted about four hundred miles--from the Straits of +Malacca to the Shore of Refuge--and when there he felt himself +within the circle of another existence, governed by his impulse, +nearer his desire. Hassim and Immada would come down to the coast +and wait for him on the islet. He always left them with regret. + +At the end of the first stage in each trip, Jorgenson waited for +him at the top of the boat-stairs and without a word fell into +step at his elbow. They seldom exchanged three words in a day; +but one evening about six months before Lingard's last trip, as +they were crossing the short bridge over the canal where native +craft lie moored in clusters, Jorgenson lengthened his stride and +came abreast. It was a moonlight night and nothing stirred on +earth but the shadows of high clouds. Lingard took off his hat +and drew in a long sigh in the tepid breeze. Jorgenson spoke +suddenly in a cautious tone: "The new Rajah Tulla smokes opium +and is sometimes dangerous to speak to. There is a lot of +discontent in Wajo amongst the big people." + +"Good! Good!" whispered Lingard, excitedly, off his guard for +once. Then--"How the devil do you know anything about it?" he +asked. + +Jorgenson pointed at the mass of praus, coasting boats, and +sampans that, jammed up together in the canal, lay covered with +mats and flooded by the cold moonlight with here and there a dim +lantern burning amongst the confusion of high sterns, spars, +masts and lowered sails. + +"There!" he said, as they moved on, and their hatted and clothed +shadows fell heavily on the queer-shaped vessels that carry the +fortunes of brown men upon a shallow sea. "There! I can sit with +them, I can talk to them, I can come and go as I like. They know +me now--it's time-thirty-five years. Some of them give a plate of +rice and a bit of fish to the white man. That's all I get--after +thirty-five years--given up to them." + +He was silent for a time. + +"I was like you once," he added, and then laying his hand on +Lingard's sleeve, murmured--"Are you very deep in this thing?" + +"To the very last cent," said Lingard, quietly, and looking +straight before him. + +The glitter of the roadstead went out, and the masts of anchored +ships vanished in the invading shadow of a cloud. + +"Drop it," whispered Jorgenson. + +"I am in debt," said Lingard, slowly, and stood still. + +"Drop it!" + +"Never dropped anything in my life." + +"Drop it!" + +"By God, I won't!" cried Lingard, stamping his foot. + +There was a pause. + +"I was like you--once," repeated Jorgenson. "Five and thirty +years--never dropped anything. And what you can do is only +child's play to some jobs I have had on my hands--understand +that--great man as you are, Captain Lingard of the Lightning. . . +. You should have seen the Wild Rose," he added with a sudden +break in his voice. + +Lingard leaned over the guard-rail of the pier. Jorgenson came +closer. + +"I set fire to her with my own hands!" he said in a vibrating +tone and very low, as if making a monstrous confession. + +"Poor devil," muttered Lingard, profoundly moved by the tragic +enormity of the act. "I suppose there was no way out?" + +"I wasn't going to let her rot to pieces in some Dutch port," +said Jorgenson, gloomily. "Did you ever hear of Dawson?" + +"Something--I don't remember now--" muttered Lingard, who felt a +chill down his back at the idea of his own vessel decaying slowly +in some Dutch port. "He died--didn't he?" he asked, absently, +while he wondered whether he would have the pluck to set fire to +the brig--on an emergency. + +"Cut his throat on the beach below Fort Rotterdam," said +Jorgenson. His gaunt figure wavered in the unsteady moonshine as +though made of mist. "Yes. He broke some trade regulation or +other and talked big about law-courts and legal trials to the +lieutenant of the Komet. 'Certainly,' says the hound. +'Jurisdiction of Macassar, I will take your schooner there.' Then +coming into the roads he tows her full tilt on a ledge of rocks +on the north side--smash! When she was half full of water he +takes his hat off to Dawson. 'There's the shore,' says he--'go +and get your legal trial, you -Englishman--'" He lifted a long +arm and shook his fist at the moon which dodged suddenly behind a +cloud. "All was lost. Poor Dawson walked the streets for months +barefooted and in rags. Then one day he begged a knife from some +charitable soul, went down to take a last look at the wreck, +and--" + +"I don't interfere with the Dutch," interrupted Lingard, +impatiently. "I want Hassim to get back his own--" + +"And suppose the Dutch want the things just so," returned +Jorgenson. "Anyway there is a devil in such work--drop it!" + +"Look here," said Lingard, "I took these people off when they +were in their last ditch. That means something. I ought not to +have meddled and it would have been all over in a few hours. I +must have meant something when I interfered, whether I knew it or +not. I meant it then--and did not know it. Very well. I mean it +now--and do know it. When you save people from death you take a +share in their life. That's how I look at it." + +Jorgenson shook his head. + +"Foolishness!" he cried, then asked softly in a voice that +trembled with curiosity--"Where did you leave them?" + +"With Belarab," breathed out Lingard. "You knew him in the old +days." + +"I knew him, I knew his father," burst out the other in an +excited whisper. "Whom did I not know? I knew Sentot when he was +King of the South Shore of Java and the Dutch offered a price for +his head--enough to make any man's fortune. He slept twice on +board the Wild Rose when things had begun to go wrong with him. I +knew him, I knew all his chiefs, the priests, the fighting men, +the old regent who lost heart and went over to the Dutch, I +knew--" he stammered as if the words could not come out, gave it +up and sighed--"Belarab's father escaped with me," he began +again, quietly, "and joined the Padris in Sumatra. He rose to be +a great leader. Belarab was a youth then. Those were the times. I +ranged the coast--and laughed at the cruisers; I saw every battle +fought in the Battak country--and I saw the Dutch run; I was at +the taking of Singal and escaped. I was the white man who advised +the chiefs of Manangkabo. There was a lot about me in the Dutch +papers at the time. They said I was a Frenchman turned +Mohammedan--" he swore a great oath, and, reeling against the +guard-rail, panted, muttering curses on newspapers. + +"Well, Belarab has the job in hand," said Lingard, composedly. +"He is the chief man on the Shore of Refuge. There are others, of +course. He has sent messages north and south. We must have men." + +"All the devils unchained," said Jorgenson. "You have done it and +now--look out--look out. . . ." + +"Nothing can go wrong as far as I can see," argued Lingard. "They +all know what's to be done. I've got them in hand. You don't +think Belarab unsafe? Do you?" + +"Haven't seen him for fifteen years--but the whole thing's +unsafe," growled Jorgenson. + +"I tell you I've fixed it so that nothing can go wrong. It would +be better if I had a white man over there to look after things +generally. There is a good lot of stores and arms--and Belarab +would bear watching--no doubt. Are you in any want?" he added, +putting his hand in his pocket. + +"No, there's plenty to eat in the house," answered Jorgenson, +curtly. "Drop it," he burst out. "It would be better for you to +jump overboard at once. Look at me. I came out a boy of eighteen. +I can speak English, I can speak Dutch, I can speak every cursed +lingo of these islands--I remember things that would make your +hair stand on end--but I have forgotten the language of my own +country. I've traded, I've fought, I never broke my word to white +or native. And, look at me. If it hadn't been for the girl I +would have died in a ditch ten years ago. Everything left +me--youth, money, strength, hope--the very sleep. But she stuck +by the wreck." + +"That says a lot for her and something for you," said Lingard, +cheerily. + +Jorgenson shook his head. + +"That's the worst of all," he said with slow emphasis. "That's +the end. I came to them from the other side of the earth and they +took me and--see what they made of me." + +"What place do you belong to?" asked Lingard. + +"Tromso," groaned out Jorgenson; "I will never see snow again," +he sobbed out, his face in his hands. + +Lingard looked at him in silence. + +"Would you come with me?" he said. "As I told you, I am in want +of a--" + +"I would see you damned first!" broke out the other, savagely. "I +am an old white loafer, but you don't get me to meddle in their +infernal affairs. They have a devil of their own--" + +"The thing simply can't fail. I've calculated every move. I've +guarded against everything. I am no fool." + +"Yes--you are. Good-night." + +"Well, good-bye," said Lingard, calmly. + +He stepped into his boat, and Jorgenson walked up the jetty. +Lingard, clearing the yoke lines, heard him call out from a +distance: + +"Drop it!" + +"I sail before sunrise," he shouted in answer, and went on board. + +When he came up from his cabin after an uneasy night, it was dark +yet. A lank figure strolled across the deck. + +"Here I am," said Jorgenson, huskily. "Die there or here--all +one. But, if I die there, remember the girl must eat." + +Lingard was one of the few who had seen Jorgenson's girl. She had +a wrinkled brown face, a lot of tangled grey hair, a few black +stumps of teeth, and had been married to him lately by an +enterprising young missionary from Bukit Timah. What her +appearance might have been once when Jorgenson gave for her three +hundred dollars and several brass guns, it was impossible to say. +All that was left of her youth was a pair of eyes, undimmed and +mournful, which, when she was alone, seemed to look stonily into +the past of two lives. When Jorgenson was near they followed his +movements with anxious pertinacity. And now within the sarong +thrown over the grey head they were dropping unseen tears while +Jorgenson's girl rocked herself to and fro, squatting alone in a +corner of the dark hut. + +"Don't you worry about that," said Lingard, grasping Jorgenson's +hand. "She shall want for nothing. All I expect you to do is to +look a little after Belarab's morals when I am away. One more +trip I must make, and then we shall be ready to go ahead. I've +foreseen every single thing. Trust me!" + +In this way did the restless shade of Captain H. C. Jorgenson +recross the water of oblivion to step back into the life of men. + + + +VI + +For two years, Lingard, who had thrown himself body and soul into +the great enterprise, had lived in the long intoxication of +slowly preparing success. No thought of failure had crossed his +mind, and no price appeared too heavy to pay for such a +magnificent achievement. It was nothing less than bringing Hassim +triumphantly back to that country seen once at night under the +low clouds and in the incessant tumult of thunder. When at the +conclusion of some long talk with Hassim, who for the twentieth +time perhaps had related the story of his wrongs and his +struggle, he lifted his big arm and shaking his fist above his +head, shouted: "We will stir them up. We will wake up the +country!" he was, without knowing it in the least, making a +complete confession of the idealism hidden under the simplicity +of his strength. He would wake up the country! That was the +fundamental and unconscious emotion on which were engrafted his +need of action, the primitive sense of what was due to justice, +to gratitude, to friendship, the sentimental pity for the hard +lot of Immada--poor child--the proud conviction that of all the +men in the world, in his world, he alone had the means and the +pluck "to lift up the big end" of such an adventure. + +Money was wanted and men were wanted, and he had obtained enough +of both in two years from that day when, pistols in his belt and +a cabbage-leaf hat on head, he had unexpectedly, and at early +dawn, confronted in perfect silence that mysterious Belarab, who +himself was for a moment too astounded for speech at the sight of +a white face. + +The sun had not yet cleared the forests of the interior, but a +sky already full of light arched over a dark oval lagoon, over +wide fields as yet full of shadows, that seemed slowly changing +into the whiteness of the morning mist. There were huts, fences, +palisades, big houses that, erected on lofty piles, were seen +above the tops of clustered fruit trees, as if suspended in the +air. + +Such was the aspect of Belarab's settlement when Lingard set his +eyes on it for the first time. There were all these things, a +great number of faces at the back of the spare and muffled-up +figure confronting him, and in the swiftly increasing light a +complete stillness that made the murmur of the word "Marhaba" +(welcome), pronounced at last by the chief, perfectly audible to +every one of his followers. The bodyguards who stood about him in +black skull-caps and with long-shafted lances, preserved an +impassive aspect. Across open spaces men could be seen running to +the waterside. A group of women standing on a low knoll gazed +intently, and nothing of them but the heads showed above the +unstirring stalks of a maize field. Suddenly within a cluster of +empty huts near by the voice of an invisible hag was heard +scolding with shrill fury an invisible young girl: + +"Strangers! You want to see the strangers? O devoid of all +decency! Must I so lame and old husk the rice alone? May evil +befall thee and the strangers! May they never find favour! May +they be pursued with swords! I am old. I am old. There is no good +in strangers! O girl! May they burn." + +"Welcome," repeated Belarab, gravely, and looking straight into +Lingard's eyes. + +Lingard spent six days that time in Belarab's settlement. Of +these, three were passed in observing each other without a +question being asked or a hint given as to the object in view. +Lingard lounged on the fine mats with which the chief had +furnished a small bamboo house outside a fortified enclosure, +where a white flag with a green border fluttered on a high and +slender pole but still below the walls of long, high-roofed +buildings, raised forty feet or more on hard-wood posts. + +Far away the inland forests were tinted a shimmering blue, like +the forests of a dream. On the seaward side the belt of great +trunks and matted undergrowth came to the western shore of the +oval lagoon; and in the pure freshness of the air the groups of +brown houses reflected in the water or seen above the waving +green of the fields, the clumps of palm trees, the fenced-in +plantations, the groves of fruit trees, made up a picture of +sumptuous prosperity. + +Above the buildings, the men, the women, the still sheet of water +and the great plain of crops glistening with dew, stretched the +exalted, the miraculous peace of a cloudless sky. And no road +seemed to lead into this country of splendour and stillness. One +could not believe the unquiet sea was so near, with its gifts and +its unending menace. Even during the months of storms, the great +clamour rising from the whitened expanse of the Shallows dwelt +high in the air in a vast murmur, now feeble now stronger, that +seemed to swing back and forth on the wind above the earth +without any one being able to tell whence it came. It was like +the solemn chant of a waterfall swelling and dying away above the +woods, the fields, above the roofs of houses and the heads of +men, above the secret peace of that hidden and flourishing +settlement of vanquished fanatics, fugitives, and outcasts. + +Every afternoon Belarab, followed by an escort that stopped +outside the door, entered alone the house of his guest. He gave +the salutation, inquired after his health, conversed about +insignificant things with an inscrutable mien. But all the time +the steadfast gaze of his thoughtful eyes seemed to seek the +truth within that white face. In the cool of the evening, before +the sun had set, they talked together, passing and repassing +between the rugged pillars of the grove near the gate of the +stockade. The escort away in the oblique sunlight, followed with +their eyes the strolling figures appearing and vanishing behind +the trees. Many words were pronounced, but nothing was said that +would disclose the thoughts of the two men. They clasped hands +demonstratively before separating, and the heavy slam of the gate +was followed by the triple thud of the wooden bars dropped into +iron clamps. + +On the third night, Lingard was awakened from a light sleep by +the sound of whispering outside. A black shadow obscured the +stars in the doorway, and a man entering suddenly, stood above +his couch while another could be seen squatting--a dark lump on +the threshold of the hut. + +"Fear not. I am Belarab," said a cautious voice. + +"I was not afraid," whispered Lingard. "It is the man coming in +the dark and without warning who is in danger." + +"And did you not come to me without warning? I said 'welcome'--it +was as easy for me to say 'kill him.'" + +"You were within reach of my arm. We would have died together," +retorted Lingard, quietly. + +The other clicked his tongue twice, and his indistinct shape +seemed to sink half-way through the floor. + +"It was not written thus before we were born," he said, sitting +cross-legged near the mats, and in a deadened voice. "Therefore +you are my guest. Let the talk between us be straight like the +shaft of a spear and shorter than the remainder of this night. +What do you want?" + +"First, your long life," answered Lingard, leaning forward toward +the gleam of a pair of eyes, "and then--your help." + + + +VII + +The faint murmur of the words spoken on that night lingered for a +long time in Lingard's ears, more persistent than the memory of +an uproar; he looked with a fixed gaze at the stars burning +peacefully in the square of the doorway, while after listening in +silence to all he had to say, Belarab, as if seduced by the +strength and audacity of the white man, opened his heart without +reserve. He talked of his youth surrounded by the fury of +fanaticism and war, of battles on the hills, of advances through +the forests, of men's unswerving piety, of their unextinguishable +hate. Not a single wandering cloud obscured the gentle splendour +of the rectangular patch of starlight framed in the opaque +blackness of the hut. Belarab murmured on of a succession of +reverses, of the ring of disasters narrowing round men's fading +hopes and undiminished courage. He whispered of defeat and +flight, of the days of despair, of the nights without sleep, of +unending pursuit, of the bewildered horror and sombre fury, of +their women and children killed in the stockade before the +besieged sallied forth to die. + +"I have seen all this before I was in years a man," he cried, +low. + +His voice vibrated. In the pause that succeeded they heard a +light sigh of the sleeping follower who, clasping his legs above +his ankles, rested his forehead on his knees. + +"And there was amongst us," began Belarab again, "one white man +who remained to the end, who was faithful with his strength, with +his courage, with his wisdom. A great man. He had great riches +but a greater heart." + +The memory of Jorgenson, emaciated and greyhaired, and trying to +borrow five dollars to get something to eat for the girl, passed +before Lingard suddenly upon the pacific glitter of the stars. + +"He resembled you," pursued Belarab, abruptly. "We escaped with +him, and in his ship came here. It was a solitude. The forest +came near to the sheet of water, the rank grass waved upon the +heads of tall men. Telal, my father, died of weariness; we were +only a few, and we all nearly died of trouble and sadness--here. +On this spot! And no enemies could tell where we had gone. It was +the Shore of Refuge--and starvation." + +He droned on in the night, with rising and falling inflections. +He told how his desperate companions wanted to go out and die +fighting on the sea against the ships from the west, the ships +with high sides and white sails; and how, unflinching and alone, +he kept them battling with the thorny bush, with the rank grass, +with the soaring and enormous trees. Lingard, leaning on his +elbow and staring through the door, recalled the image of the +wide fields outside, sleeping now, in an immensity of serenity +and starlight. This quiet and almost invisible talker had done it +all; in him was the origin, the creation, the fate; and in the +wonder of that thought the shadowy murmuring figure acquired a +gigantic greatness of significance, as if it had been the +embodiment of some natural force, of a force forever masterful +and undying. + +"And even now my life is unsafe as if I were their enemy," said +Belarab, mournfully. "Eyes do not kill, nor angry words; and +curses have no power, else the Dutch would not grow fat living on +our land, and I would not be alive to-night. Do you understand? +Have you seen the men who fought in the old days? They have not +forgotten the times of war. I have given them homes and quiet +hearts and full bellies. I alone. And they curse my name in the +dark, in each other's ears--because they can never forget." + +This man, whose talk had been of war and violence, discovered +unexpectedly a passionate craving for security and peace. No one +would understand him. Some of those who would not understand had +died. His white teeth gleamed cruelly in the dark. But there were +others he could not kill. The fools. He wanted the land and the +people in it to be forgotten as if they had been swallowed by the +sea. But they had neither wisdom nor patience. Could they not +wait? They chanted prayers five times every day, but they had not +the faith. + +"Death comes to all--and to the believers the end of trouble. But +you white men who are too strong for us, you also die. You die. +And there is a Paradise as great as all earth and all Heaven +together, but not for you--not for you!" + +Lingard, amazed, listened without a sound. The sleeper snored +faintly. Belarab continued very calm after this almost +involuntary outburst of a consoling belief. He explained that he +wanted somebody at his back, somebody strong and whom he could +trust, some outside force that would awe the unruly, that would +inspire their ignorance with fear, and make his rule secure. He +groped in the dark and seizing Lingard's arm above the elbow +pressed it with force--then let go. And Lingard understood why +his temerity had been so successful. + +Then and there, in return for Lingard's open support, a few guns +and a little money, Belarab promised his help for the conquest of +Wajo. There was no doubt he could find men who would fight. He +could send messages to friends at a distance and there were also +many unquiet spirits in his own district ready for any adventure. +He spoke of these men with fierce contempt and an angry +tenderness, in mingled accents of envy and disdain. He was +wearied by their folly, by their recklessness, by their +impatience--and he seemed to resent these as if they had been +gifts of which he himself had been deprived by the fatality of +his wisdom. They would fight. When the time came Lingard had only +to speak, and a sign from him would send them to a vain +death--those men who could not wait for an opportunity on this +earth or for the eternal revenge of Heaven. + +He ceased, and towered upright in the gloom. + +"Awake!" he exclaimed, low, bending over the sleeping man. + +Their black shapes, passing in turn, eclipsed for two successive +moments the glitter of the stars, and Lingard, who had not +stirred, remained alone. He lay back full length with an arm +thrown across his eyes. + +When three days afterward he left Belarab's settlement, it was on +a calm morning of unclouded peace. All the boats of the brig came +up into the lagoon armed and manned to make more impressive the +solemn fact of a concluded alliance. A staring crowd watched his +imposing departure in profound silence and with an increased +sense of wonder at the mystery of his apparition. The progress of +the boats was smooth and slow while they crossed the wide lagoon. +Lingard looked back once. A great stillness had laid its hand +over the earth, the sky, and the men; upon the immobility of +landscape and people. Hassim and Immada, standing out clearly by +the side of the chief, raised their arms in a last salutation; +and the distant gesture appeared sad, futile, lost in space, like +a sign of distress made by castaways in the vain hope of an +impossible help. + +He departed, he returned, he went away again, and each time those +two figures, lonely on some sandbank of the Shallows, made at him +the same futile sign of greeting or good-bye. Their arms at each +movement seemed to draw closer around his heart the bonds of a +protecting affection. He worked prosaically, earning money to pay +the cost of the romantic necessity that had invaded his life. And +the money ran like water out of his hands. The owner of the New +England voice remitted not a little of it to his people in +Baltimore. But import houses in the ports of the Far East had +their share. It paid for a fast prau which, commanded by Jaffir, +sailed into unfrequented bays and up unexplored rivers, carrying +secret messages, important news, generous bribes. A good part of +it went to the purchase of the Emma. + +The Emma was a battered and decrepit old schooner that, in the +decline of her existence, had been much ill-used by a paunchy +white trader of cunning and gluttonous aspect. This man boasted +outrageously afterward of the good price he had got "for that +rotten old hooker of mine--you know." The Emma left port +mysteriously in company with the brig and henceforth vanished +from the seas forever. Lingard had her towed up the creek and ran +her aground upon that shore of the lagoon farthest from Belarab's +settlement. There had been at that time a great rise of waters, +which retiring soon after left the old craft cradled in the mud, +with her bows grounded high between the trunks of two big trees, +and leaning over a little as though after a hard life she had +settled wearily to an everlasting rest. There, a few months +later, Jorgenson found her when, called back into the life of +men, he reappeared, together with Lingard, in the Land of Refuge. + +"She is better than a fort on shore," said Lingard, as side by +side they leant over the taffrail, looking across the lagoon on +the houses and palm groves of the settlement. "All the guns and +powder I have got together so far are stored in her. Good idea, +wasn't it? There will be, perhaps, no other such flood for years, +and now they can't come alongside unless right under the counter, +and only one boat at a time. I think you are perfectly safe here; +you could keep off a whole fleet of boats; she isn't easy to set +fire to; the forest in front is better than a wall. Well?" + +Jorgenson assented in grunts. He looked at the desolate emptiness +of the decks, at the stripped spars, at the dead body of the +dismantled little vessel that would know the life of the seas no +more. The gloom of the forest fell on her, mournful like a +winding sheet. The bushes of the bank tapped their twigs on the +bluff of her bows, and a pendent spike of tiny brown blossoms +swung to and fro over the ruins of her windlass. + +Hassim's companions garrisoned the old hulk, and Jorgenson, left +in charge, prowled about from stem to stern, taciturn and +anxiously faithful to his trust. He had been received with +astonishment, respect--and awe. Belarab visited him often. +Sometimes those whom he had known in their prime years ago, +during a struggle for faith and life, would come to talk with the +white man. Their voices were like the echoes of stirring events, +in the pale glamour of a youth gone by. They nodded their old +heads. Do you remember?--they said. He remembered only too well! +He was like a man raised from the dead, for whom the fascinating +trust in the power of life is tainted by the black scepticism of +the grave. + +Only at times the invincible belief in the reality of existence +would come back, insidious and inspiring. He squared his +shoulders, held himself straight, and walked with a firmer step. +He felt a glow within him and the quickened beat of his heart. +Then he calculated in silent excitement Lingard's chances of +success, and he lived for a time with the life of that other man +who knew nothing of the black scepticism of the grave. The +chances were good, very good. + +"I should like to see it through," Jorgenson muttered to himself +ardently; and his lustreless eyes would flash for a moment. + + + +PART III. THE CAPTURE + +I + +"Some people," said Lingard, "go about the world with their eyes +shut. You are right. The sea is free to all of us. Some work on +it, and some play the fool on it--and I don't care. Only you may +take it from me that I will let no man's play interfere with my +work. You want me to understand you are a very great man--" + +Mr. Travers smiled, coldly. + +"Oh, yes," continued Lingard, "I understand that well enough. But +remember you are very far from home, while I, here, I am where I +belong. And I belong where I am. I am just Tom Lingard, no more, +no less, wherever I happen to be, and--you may ask--" A sweep of +his hand along the western horizon entrusted with perfect +confidence the remainder of his speech to the dumb testimony of +the sea. + +He had been on board the yacht for more than an. hour, and +nothing, for him, had come of it but the birth of an unreasoning +hate. To the unconscious demand of these people's presence, of +their ignorance, of their faces, of their voices, of their eyes, +he had nothing to give but a resentment that had in it a germ of +reckless violence. He could tell them nothing because he had not +the means. Their coming at this moment, when he had wandered +beyond that circle which race, memories, early associations, all +the essential conditions of one's origin, trace round every man's +life, deprived him in a manner of the power of speech. He was +confounded. It was like meeting exacting spectres in a desert. + +He stared at the open sea, his arms crossed, with a reflective +fierceness. His very appearance made him utterly different from +everyone on board that vessel. The grey shirt, the blue sash, one +rolled-up sleeve baring a sculptural forearm, the negligent +masterfulness of his tone and pose were very distasteful to Mr. +Travers, who, having made up his mind to wait for some kind of +official assistance, regarded the intrusion of that inexplicable +man with suspicion. From the moment Lingard came on board the +yacht, every eye in that vessel had been fixed upon him. Only +Carter, within earshot and leaning with his elbow upon the rail, +stared down at the deck as if overcome with drowsiness or lost in +thought. + +Of the three other persons aft, Mr. Travers kept his hands in the +side pockets of his jacket and did not conceal his growing +disgust. + +On the other side of the deck, a lady, in a long chair, had a +passive attitude that to Mr. d'Alcacer, standing near her, seemed +characteristic of the manner in which she accepted the +necessities of existence. Years before, as an attache of his +Embassy in London, he had found her an interesting hostess. She +was even more interesting now, since a chance meeting and Mr. +Travers' offer of a passage to Batavia had given him an +opportunity of studying the various shades of scorn which he +suspected to be the secret of her acquiescence in the shallowness +of events and the monotony of a worldly existence. + +There were things that from the first he had not been able to +understand; for instance, why she should have married Mr. +Travers. It must have been from ambition. He could not help +feeling that such a successful mistake would explain completely +her scorn and also her acquiescence. The meeting in Manila had +been utterly unexpected to him, and he accounted for it to his +uncle, the Governor-General of the colony, by pointing out that +Englishmen, when worsted in the struggle of love or politics, +travel extensively, as if by encompassing a large portion of +earth's surface they hoped to gather fresh strength for a renewed +contest. As to himself, he judged--but did not say--that his +contest with fate was ended, though he also travelled, leaving +behind him in the capitals of Europe a story in which there was +nothing scandalous but the publicity of an excessive feeling, and +nothing more tragic than the early death of a woman whose +brilliant perfections were no better known to the great world +than the discreet and passionate devotion she had innocently +inspired. + +The invitation to join the yacht was the culminating point of +many exchanged civilities, and was mainly prompted by Mr. +Travers' desire to have somebody to talk to. D'Alcacer had +accepted with the reckless indifference of a man to whom one +method of flight from a relentless enemy is as good as another. +Certainly the prospect of listening to long monologues on +commerce, administration, and politics did not promise much +alleviation to his sorrow; and he could not expect much else from +Mr. Travers, whose life and thought, ignorant of human passion, +were devoted to extracting the greatest possible amount of +personal advantage from human institutions. D'Alcacer found, +however, that he could attain a measure of forgetfulness--the +most precious thing for him now--in the society of Edith Travers. + +She had awakened his curiosity, which he thought nothing and +nobody on earth could do any more. + +These two talked of things indifferent and interesting, certainly +not connected with human institutions, and only very slightly +with human passions; but d'Alcacer could not help being made +aware of her latent capacity for sympathy developed in those who +are disenchanted with life or death. How far she was disenchanted +he did not know, and did not attempt to find out. This restraint +was imposed upon him by the chivalrous respect he had for the +secrets of women and by a conviction that deep feeling is often +impenetrably obscure, even to those it masters for their +inspiration or their ruin. He believed that even she herself +would never know; but his grave curiosity was satisfied by the +observation of her mental state, and he was not sorry that the +stranding of the yacht prolonged his opportunity. + +Time passed on that mudbank as well as anywhere else, and it was +not from a multiplicity of events, but from the lapse of time +alone, that he expected relief. Yet in the sameness of days upon +the Shallows, time flowing ceaselessly, flowed imperceptibly; +and, since every man clings to his own, be it joy, be it grief, +he was pleased after the unrest of his wanderings to be able to +fancy the whole universe and even time itself apparently come to +a standstill; as if unwilling to take him away further from his +sorrow, which was fading indeed but undiminished, as things fade, +not in the distance but in the mist. + + +II + +D'Alcacer was a man of nearly forty, lean and sallow, with hollow +eyes and a drooping brown moustache. His gaze was penetrating and +direct, his smile frequent and fleeting. He observed Lingard with +great interest. He was attracted by that elusive something--a +line, a fold, perhaps the form of the eye, the droop of an +eyelid, the curve of a cheek, that trifling trait which on no two +faces on earth is alike, that in each face is the very foundation +of expression, as if, all the rest being heredity, mystery, or +accident, it alone had been shaped consciously by the soul +within. + +Now and then he bent slightly over the slow beat of a red fan in +the curve of the deck chair to say a few words to Mrs. Travers, +who answered him without looking up, without a modulation of tone +or a play of feature, as if she had spoken from behind the veil +of an immense indifference stretched between her and all men, +between her heart and the meaning of events, between her eyes and +the shallow sea which, like her gaze, appeared profound, forever +stilled, and seemed, far off in the distance of a faint horizon, +beyond the reach of eye, beyond the power of hand or voice, to +lose itself in the sky. + +Mr. Travers stepped aside, and speaking to Carter, overwhelmed +him with reproaches. + +"You misunderstood your instructions," murmured Mr. Travers +rapidly. "Why did you bring this man here? I am surprised--" + +"Not half so much as I was last night," growled the young seaman, +without any reverence in his tone, very provoking to Mr. Travers. + +"I perceive now you were totally unfit for the mission I +entrusted you with," went on the owner of the yacht. + +"It's he who got hold of me," said Carter. "Haven't you heard him +yourself, sir?" + +"Nonsense," whispered Mr. Travers, angrily. "Have you any idea +what his intentions may be?" + +"I half believe," answered Carter, "that his intention was to +shoot me in his cabin last night if I--" + +"That's not the point," interrupted Mr. Travers. "Have you any +opinion as to his motives in coming here?" + +Carter raised his weary, bloodshot eyes in a face scarlet and +peeling as though it had been licked by a flame. "I know no more +than you do, sir. Last night when he had me in that cabin of his, +he said he would just as soon shoot me as let me go to look for +any other help. It looks as if he were desperately bent upon +getting a lot of salvage money out of a stranded yacht." + +Mr. Travers turned away, and, for a moment, appeared immersed in +deep thought. This accident of stranding upon a deserted coast +was annoying as a loss of time. He tried to minimize it by +putting in order the notes collected during the year's travel in +the East. He had sent off for assistance; his sailing-master, +very crestfallen, made bold to say that the yacht would most +likely float at the next spring tides; d'Alcacer, a person of +undoubted nobility though of inferior principles, was better than +no company, in so far at least that he could play picquet. + +Mr. Travers had made up his mind to wait. Then suddenly this +rough man, looking as if he had stepped out from an engraving in +a book about buccaneers, broke in upon his resignation with +mysterious allusions to danger, which sounded absurd yet were +disturbing; with dark and warning sentences that sounded like +disguised menaces. + +Mr. Travers had a heavy and rather long chin which he shaved. His +eyes were blue, a chill, naive blue. He faced Lingard untouched +by travel, without a mark of weariness or exposure, with the air +of having been born invulnerable. He had a full, pale face; and +his complexion was perfectly colourless, yet amazingly fresh, as +if he had been reared in the shade. + +He thought: + +"I must put an end to this preposterous hectoring. I won't be +intimidated into paying for services I don't need." + +Mr. Travers felt a strong disgust for the impudence of the +attempt; and all at once, incredibly, strangely, as though the +thing, like a contest with a rival or a friend, had been of +profound importance to his career, he felt inexplicably elated at +the thought of defeating the secret purposes of that man. + +Lingard, unconscious of everything and everybody, contemplated +the sea. He had grown on it, he had lived with it; it had enticed +him away from home; on it his thoughts had expanded and his hand +had found work to do. It had suggested endeavour, it had made him +owner and commander of the finest brig afloat; it had lulled him +into a belief in himself, in his strength, in his luck--and +suddenly, by its complicity in a fatal accident, it had brought +him face to face with a difficulty that looked like the beginning +of disaster. + +He had said all he dared to say--and he perceived that he was not +believed. This had not happened to him for years. It had never +happened. It bewildered him as if he had suddenly discovered that +he was no longer himself. He had come to them and had said: "I +mean well by you. I am Tom Lingard--" and they did not believe! +Before such scepticism he was helpless, because he had never +imagined it possible. He had said: "You are in the way of my +work. You are in the way of what I can not give up for any one; +but I will see you through all safe if you will only trust me-- +me, Tom Lingard." And they would not believe him! It was +intolerable. He imagined himself sweeping their disbelief out of +his way. And why not? He did not know them, he did not care for +them, he did not even need to lift his hand against them! All he +had to do was to shut his eyes now for a day or two, and +afterward he could forget that he had ever seen them. It would be +easy. Let their disbelief vanish, their folly disappear, their +bodies perish. . . . It was that--or ruin! + + + +III + +Lingard's gaze, detaching itself from the silent sea, travelled +slowly over the silent figures clustering forward, over the faces +of the seamen attentive and surprised, over the faces never seen +before yet suggesting old days--his youth--other seas--the +distant shores of early memories. Mr. Travers gave a start also, +and the hand which had been busy with his left whisker went into +the pocket of his jacket, as though he had plucked out something +worth keeping. He made a quick step toward Lingard. + +"I don't see my way to utilize your services," he said, with cold +finality. + +Lingard, grasping his beard, looked down at him thoughtfully for +a short time. + +"Perhaps it's just as well," he said, very slowly, "because I did +not offer my services. I've offered to take you on board my brig +for a few days, as your only chance of safety. And you asked me +what were my motives. My motives! If you don't see them they are +not for you to know." + +And these men who, two hours before had never seen each other, +stood for a moment close together, antagonistic, as if they had +been life-long enemies, one short, dapper and glaring upward, the +other towering heavily, and looking down in contempt and anger. + +Mr. d'Alcacer, without taking his eyes off them, bent low over +the deck chair. + +"Have you ever seen a man dashing himself at a stone wall?" he +asked, confidentially. + +"No," said Mrs. Travers, gazing straight before her above the +slow flutter of the fan. "No, I did not know it was ever done; +men burrow under or slip round quietly while they look the other +way." + +"Ah! you define diplomacy," murmured d'Alcacer. "A little of it +here would do no harm. But our picturesque visitor has none of +it. I've a great liking for him." + +"Already!" breathed out Mrs. Travers, with a smile that touched +her lips with its bright wing and was flown almost before it +could be seen. + +"There is liking at first sight," affirmed d'Alcacer, "as well as +love at first sight--the coup de foudre--you know." + +She looked up for a moment, and he went on, gravely: "I think it +is the truest, the most profound of sentiments. You do not love +because of what is in the other. You love because of something +that is in you--something alive--in yourself." He struck his +breast lightly with the tip of one finger. "A capacity in you. +And not everyone may have it--not everyone deserves to be touched +by fire from heaven." + +"And die," she said. + +He made a slight movement. + +"Who can tell? That is as it may be. But it is always a +privilege, even if one must live a little after being burnt." + +Through the silence between them, Mr. Travers' voice came +plainly, saying with irritation: + +"I've told you already that I do not want you. I've sent a +messenger to the governor of the Straits. Don't be importunate." + +Then Lingard, standing with his back to them, growled out +something which must have exasperated Mr. Travers, because his +voice was pitched higher: + +"You are playing a dangerous game, I warn you. Sir John, as it +happens, is a personal friend of mine. He will send a cruiser--" +and Lingard interrupted recklessly loud: + +"As long as she does not get here for the next ten days, I don't +care. Cruisers are scarce just now in the Straits; and to turn my +back on you is no hanging matter anyhow. I would risk that, and +more! Do you hear? And more!" + +He stamped his foot heavily, Mr. Travers stepped back. + +"You will gain nothing by trying to frighten me," he said. "I +don't know who you are." + +Every eye in the yacht was wide open. The men, crowded upon each +other, stared stupidly like a flock of sheep. Mr. Travers pulled +out a handkerchief and passed it over his forehead. The face of +the sailing-master who leaned against the main mast--as near as +he dared to approach the gentry--was shining and crimson between +white whiskers, like a glowing coal between two patches of snow. + +D'Alcacer whispered: + +"It is a quarrel, and the picturesque man is angry. He is hurt." + +Mrs. Travers' fan rested on her knees, and she sat still as if +waiting to hear more. + +"Do you think I ought to make an effort for peace?" asked +d'Alcacer. + +She did not answer, and after waiting a little, he insisted: + +"What is your opinion? Shall I try to mediate--as a neutral, as a +benevolent neutral? I like that man with the beard." + +The interchange of angry phrases went on aloud, amidst general +consternation. + +"I would turn my back on you only I am thinking of these poor +devils here," growled Lingard, furiously. "Did you ask them how +they feel about it?" + +"I ask no one," spluttered Mr. Travers. "Everybody here depends +on my judgment." + +"I am sorry for them then," pronounced Lingard with sudden +deliberation, and leaning forward with his arms crossed on his +breast. + +At this Mr. Travers positively jumped, and forgot himself so far +as to shout: + +"You are an impudent fellow. I have nothing more to say to you." + +D'Alcacer, after muttering to himself, "This is getting serious," +made a movement, and could not believe his ears when he heard +Mrs. Travers say rapidly with a kind of fervour: + +"Don't go, pray; don't stop them. Oh! This is truth--this is +anger--something real at last." + +D'Alcacer leaned back at once against the rail. + +Then Mr. Travers, with one arm extended, repeated very loudly: + +"Nothing more to say. Leave my ship at once!" + +And directly the black dog, stretched at his wife's feet, muzzle +on paws and blinking yellow eyes, growled discontentedly at the +noise. Mrs. Travers laughed a faint, bright laugh, that seemed to +escape, to glide, to dart between her white teeth. D'Alcacer, +concealing his amazement, was looking down at her gravely: and +after a slight gasp, she said with little bursts of merriment +between every few words: + +"No, but this is--such--such a fresh experience for me to +hear--to see something--genuine and human. Ah! ah! one would +think they had waited all their lives for this opportunity--ah! +ah! ah! All their lives--for this! ah! ah! ah!" + +These strange words struck d'Alcacer as perfectly just, as +throwing an unexpected light. But after a smile, he said, +seriously: + +"This reality may go too far. A man who looks so picturesque is +capable of anything. Allow me--" And he left her side, moving +toward Lingard, loose-limbed and gaunt, yet having in his whole +bearing, in his walk, in every leisurely movement, an air of +distinction and ceremony. + +Lingard spun round with aggressive mien to the light touch on his +shoulder, but as soon as he took his eyes off Mr. Travers, his +anger fell, seemed to sink without a sound at his feet like a +rejected garment. + +"Pardon me," said d'Alcacer, composedly. The slight wave of his +hand was hardly more than an indication, the beginning of a +conciliating gesture. "Pardon me; but this is a matter requiring +perfect confidence on both sides. Don Martin, here, who is a +person of importance. . . ." + +"I've spoken my mind plainly. I have said as much as I dare. On +my word I have," declared Lingard with an air of good temper. + +"Ah!" said d'Alcacer, reflectively, "then your reserve is a +matter of pledged faith--of--of honour?" + +Lingard also appeared thoughtful for a moment. + +"You may put it that way. And I owe nothing to a man who couldn't +see my hand when I put it out to him as I came aboard." + +"You have so much the advantage of us here," replied d'Alcacer, +"that you may well be generous and forget that oversight; and +then just a little more confidence. . . ." + +"My dear d'Alcacer, you are absurd," broke in Mr. Travers, in a +calm voice but with white lips. "I did not come out all this way +to shake hands promiscuously and receive confidences from the +first adventurer that comes along." + +D'Alcacer stepped back with an almost imperceptible inclination +of the head at Lingard, who stood for a moment with twitching +face. + +"I AM an adventurer," he burst out, "and if I hadn't been an +adventurer, I would have had to starve or work at home for such +people as you. If I weren't an adventurer, you would be most +likely lying dead on this deck with your cut throat gaping at the +sky." + +Mr. Travers waved this speech away. But others also had heard. +Carter listened watchfully and something, some alarming notion +seemed to dawn all at once upon the thick little sailing-master, +who rushed on his short legs, and tugging at Carter's sleeve, +stammered desperately: + +"What's he saying? Who's he? What's up? Are the natives +unfriendly? My book says--'Natives friendly all along this +coast!' My book says--" + +Carter, who had glanced over the side, jerked his arm free. + +"You go down into the pantry, where you belong, Skipper, and read +that bit about the natives over again," he said to his superior +officer, with savage contempt. "I'll be hanged if some of them +ain't coming aboard now to eat you--book and all. Get out of the +way, and let the gentlemen have the first chance of a row." + +Then addressing Lingard, he drawled in his old way: + +"That crazy mate of yours has sent your boat back, with a couple +of visitors in her, too." + +Before he apprehended plainly the meaning of these words, Lingard +caught sight of two heads rising above the rail, the head of +Hassim and the head of Immada. Then their bodies ascended into +view as though these two beings had gradually emerged from the +Shallows. They stood for a moment on the platform looking down on +the deck as if about to step into the unknown, then descended and +walking aft entered the half-light under the awning shading the +luxurious surroundings, the complicated emotions of the, to them, +inconceivable existences. + +Lingard without waiting a moment cried: + +"What news, O Rajah?" + +Hassim's eyes made the round of the schooner's decks. He had left +his gun in the boat and advanced empty handed, with a tranquil +assurance as if bearing a welcome offering in the faint smile of +his lips. Immada, half hidden behind his shoulder, followed +lightly, her elbows pressed close to her side. The thick fringe +of her eyelashes was dropped like a veil; she looked youthful and +brooding; she had an aspect of shy resolution. + +They stopped within arm's length of the whites, and for some time +nobody said a word. Then Hassim gave Lingard a significant +glance, and uttered rapidly with a slight toss of the head that +indicated in a manner the whole of the yacht: + +"I see no guns!" + +"N--no!" said Lingard, looking suddenly confused. It had occurred +to him that for the first time in two years or more he had +forgotten, utterly forgotten, these people's existence. + +Immada stood slight and rigid with downcast eyes. Hassim, at his +ease, scrutinized the faces, as if searching for elusive points +of similitude or for subtle shades of difference. + +"What is this new intrusion?" asked Mr. Travers, angrily. + +"These are the fisher-folk, sir," broke in the sailing-master, +"we've observed these three days past flitting about in a canoe; +but they never had the sense to answer our hail; and yet a bit of +fish for your breakfast--" He smiled obsequiously, and all at +once, without provocation, began to bellow: + +"Hey! Johnnie! Hab got fish? Fish! One peecee fish! Eh? Savee? +Fish! Fish--" He gave it up suddenly to say in a deferential +tone--"Can't make them savages understand anything, sir," and +withdrew as if after a clever feat. + +Hassim looked at Lingard. + +"Why did the little white man make that outcry?" he asked, +anxiously. + +"Their desire is to eat fish," said Lingard in an enraged tone. + +Then before the air of extreme surprise which incontinently +appeared on the other's face, he could not restrain a short and +hopeless laugh. + +"Eat fish," repeated Hassim, staring. "O you white people! O you +white people! Eat fish! Good! But why make that noise? And why +did you send them here without guns?" After a significant glance +down upon the slope of the deck caused by the vessel being on the +ground, he added with a slight nod at Lingard--"And without +knowledge?" + +"You should not have come here, O Hassim," said Lingard, testily. +"Here no one understands. They take a rajah for a fisherman--" + +"Ya-wa! A great mistake, for, truly, the chief of ten fugitives +without a country is much less than the headman of a fishing +village," observed Hassim, composedly. Immada sighed. "But you, +Tuan, at least know the truth," he went on with quiet irony; then +after a pause --"We came here because you had forgotten to look +toward us, who had waited, sleeping little at night, and in the +day watching with hot eyes the empty water at the foot of the sky +for you." + +Immada murmured, without lifting her head: + +"You never looked for us. Never, never once." + +"There was too much trouble in my eyes," explained Lingard with +that patient gentleness of tone and face which, every time he +spoke to the young girl, seemed to disengage itself from his +whole person, enveloping his fierceness, softening his aspect, +such as the dreamy mist that in the early radiance of the morning +weaves a veil of tender charm about a rugged rock in mid-ocean. +"I must look now to the right and to the left as in a time of +sudden danger," he added after a moment and she whispered an +appalled "Why?" so low that its pain floated away in the silence +of attentive men, without response, unheard, ignored, like the +pain of an impalpable thought. + + + +IV + +D'Alcacer, standing back, surveyed them all with a profound and +alert attention. Lingard seemed unable to tear himself away from +the yacht, and remained, checked, as it were in the act of going, +like a man who has stopped to think out the last thing to say; +and that stillness of a body, forgotten by the labouring mind, +reminded Carter of that moment in the cabin, when alone he had +seen this man thus wrestling with his thought, motionless and +locked in the grip of his conscience. + +Mr. Travers muttered audibly through his teeth: + +"How long is this performance going to last? I have desired you +to go." + +"Think of these poor devils," whispered Lingard, with a quick +glance at the crew huddled up near by. + +"You are the kind of man I would be least disposed to trust--in +any case," said Mr. Travers, incisively, very low, and with an +inexplicable but very apparent satisfaction. "You are only +wasting your time here." + +"You--You--" He stammered and stared. He chewed with growls some +insulting word and at last swallowed it with an effort. "My time +pays for your life," he said. + +He became aware of a sudden stir, and saw that Mrs. Travers had +risen from her chair. + +She walked impulsively toward the group on the quarter-deck, +making straight for Immada. Hassim had stepped aside and his +detached gaze of a Malay gentleman passed by her as if she had +been invisible. + +She was tall, supple, moving freely. Her complexion was so +dazzling in the shade that it seemed to throw out a halo round +her head. Upon a smooth and wide brow an abundance of pale fair +hair, fine as silk, undulating like the sea, heavy like a helmet, +descended low without a trace of gloss, without a gleam in its +coils, as though it had never been touched by a ray of light; and +a throat white, smooth, palpitating with life, a round neck +modelled with strength and delicacy, supported gloriously that +radiant face and that pale mass of hair unkissed by sunshine. + +She said with animation: + +"Why, it's a girl!" + +Mrs. Travers extorted from d'Alcacer a fresh tribute of +curiosity. A strong puff of wind fluttered the awnings and one of +the screens blowing out wide let in upon the quarter-deck the +rippling glitter of the Shallows, showing to d'Alcacer the +luminous vastness of the sea, with the line of the distant +horizon, dark like the edge of the encompassing night, drawn at +the height of Mrs. Travers' shoulder. . . . Where was it he had +seen her last--a long time before, on the other side of the +world? There was also the glitter of splendour around her then, +and an impression of luminous vastness. The encompassing night, +too, was there, the night that waits for its time to move forward +upon the glitter, the splendour, the men, the women. + +He could not remember for the moment, but he became convinced +that of all the women he knew, she alone seemed to be made for +action. Every one of her movements had firmness, ease, the +meaning of a vital fact, the moral beauty of a fearless +expression. Her supple figure was not dishonoured by any +faltering of outlines under the plain dress of dark blue stuff +moulding her form with bold simplicity. + +She had only very few steps to make, but before she had stopped, +confronting Immada, d'Alcacer remembered her suddenly as he had +seen her last, out West, far away, impossibly different, as if in +another universe, as if presented by the fantasy of a fevered +memory. He saw her in a luminous perspective of palatial drawing +rooms, in the restless eddy and flow of a human sea, at the foot +of walls high as cliffs, under lofty ceilings that like a +tropical sky flung light and heat upon the shallow glitter of +uniforms, of stars, of diamonds, of eyes sparkling in the weary +or impassive faces of the throng at an official reception. +Outside he had found the unavoidable darkness with its aspect of +patient waiting, a cloudy sky holding back the dawn of a London +morning. It was difficult to believe. + +Lingard, who had been looking dangerously fierce, slapped his +thigh and showed signs of agitation. + +"By heavens, I had forgotten all about you!" he pronounced in +dismay. + +Mrs. Travers fixed her eyes on Immada. Fairhaired and white she +asserted herself before the girl of olive face and raven locks +with the maturity of perfection, with the superiority of the +flower over the leaf, of the phrase that contains a thought over +the cry that can only express an emotion. Immense spaces and +countless centuries stretched between them: and she looked at her +as when one looks into one's own heart with absorbed curiosity, +with still wonder, with an immense compassion. Lingard murmured, +warningly: + +"Don't touch her." + +Mrs. Travers looked at him. + +"Do you think I could hurt her?" she asked, softly, and was so +startled to hear him mutter a gloomy "Perhaps," that she +hesitated before she smiled. + +"Almost a child! And so pretty! What a delicate face," she said, +while another deep sigh of the sea breeze lifted and let fall the +screens, so that the sound, the wind, and the glitter seemed to +rush in together and bear her words away into space. "I had no +idea of anything so charmingly gentle," she went on in a voice +that without effort glowed, caressed, and had a magic power of +delight to the soul. "So young! And she lives here--does she? On +the sea--or where? Lives--" Then faintly, as if she had been in +the act of speaking, removed instantly to a great distance, she +was heard again: "How does she live?" + +Lingard had hardly seen Edith Travers till then. He had seen no +one really but Mr. Travers. .He looked and listened with +something of the stupor of a new sensation. + +Then he made a distinct effort to collect his thoughts and said +with a remnant of anger: + +"What have you got to do with her? She knows war. Do you know +anything about it? And hunger, too, and thirst, and unhappiness; +things you have only heard about. She has been as near death as I +am to you--and what is all that to any of you here?" + +"That child!" she said in slow wonder. + +Immada turned upon Mrs. Travers her eyes black as coal, sparkling +and soft like a tropical night; and the glances of the two women, +their dissimilar and inquiring glances met, seemed to touch, +clasp, hold each other with the grip of an intimate contact. They +separated. + +"What are they come for? Why did you show them the way to this +place?" asked Immada, faintly. + +Lingard shook his head in denial. + +"Poor girl," said Mrs. Travers. "Are they all so pretty?" + +"Who-all?" mumbled Lingard. "There isn't an other one like her if +you were to ransack the islands all round the compass." + +"Edith!" ejaculated Mr. Travers in a remonstrating, acrimonious +voice, and everyone gave him a look of vague surprise. + +Then Mrs. Travers asked: + +"Who is she?" + +Lingard very red and grave declared curtly: + +"A princess." + +Immediately he looked round with suspicion. No one smiled. +D'Alcacer, courteous and nonchalant, lounged up close to Mrs. +Travers' elbow. + +"If she is a princess, then this man is a knight," he murmured +with conviction. "A knight as I live! A descendant of the +immortal hidalgo errant upon the sea. It would be good for us to +have him for a friend. Seriously I think that you ought--" + +The two stepped aside and spoke low and hurriedly. + +"Yes, you ought--" + +"How can I?" she interrupted, catching the meaning like a ball. + +"By saying something." + +"Is it really necessary?" she asked, doubtfully. + +"It would do no harm," said d'Alcacer with sudden carelessness; +"a friend is always better than an enemy." + +"Always?" she repeated, meaningly. "But what could I say?" + +"Some words," he answered; "I should think any words in your +voice--" + +"Mr. d'Alcacer!" + +"Or you could perhaps look at him once or twice as though he were +not exactly a robber," he continued. + +"Mr. d'Alcacer, are you afraid?" + +"Extremely," he said, stooping to pick up the fan at her feet. +"That is the reason I am so anxious to conciliate. And you must +not forget that one of your queens once stepped on the cloak of +perhaps such a man." + +Her eyes sparkled and she dropped them suddenly. + +"I am not a queen," she said, coldly. + +"Unfortunately not," he admitted; "but then the other was a woman +with no charm but her crown." + +At that moment Lingard, to whom Hassim had been talking +earnestly, protested aloud: + +"I never saw these people before." + +Immada caught hold of her brother's arm. Mr. Travers said +harshly: + +"Oblige me by taking these natives away." + +"Never before," murmured Immada as if lost in ecstasy. D'Alcacer +glanced at Mrs. Travers and made a step forward. + +"Could not the difficulty, whatever it is, be arranged, Captain?" +he said with careful politeness. "Observe that we are not only +men here--" + +"Let them die!" cried Immada, triumphantly. + +Though Lingard alone understood the meaning of these words, all +on board felt oppressed by the uneasy silence which followed her +cry. + +"Ah! He is going. Now, Mrs. Travers," whispered d'Alcacer. + +"I hope!" said Mrs. Travers, impulsively, and stopped as if +alarmed at the sound. + +Lingard stood still. + +"I hope," she began again, "that this poor girl will know happier +days--" She hesitated. + +Lingard waited, attentive and serious. + +"Under your care," she finished. "And I believe you meant to be +friendly to us." + +"Thank you," said Lingard with dignity. + +"You and d'Alcacer," observed Mr. Travers, austerely, "are +unnecessarily detaining this--ah--person, and--ah--friends--ah!" + +"I had forgotten you--and now--what? One must--it is +hard--hard--" went on Lingard, disconnectedly, while he looked +into Mrs. Travers' violet eyes, and felt his mind overpowered and +troubled as if by the contemplation of vast distances. "I--you +don't know--I--you--cannot . . . Ha! It's all that man's doing," +he burst out. + +For a time, as if beside himself, he glared at Mrs. Travers, then +flung up one arm and strode off toward the gangway, where Hassim +and Immada waited for him, interested and patient. With a single +word "Come," he preceded them down into the boat. Not a sound was +heard on the yacht's deck, while these three disappeared one +after another below the rail as if they had descended into the +sea. + + + +V + +The afternoon dragged itself out in silence. Mrs. Travers sat +pensive and idle with her fan on her knees. D'Alcacer, who +thought the incident should have been treated in a conciliatory +spirit, attempted to communicate his view to his host, but that +gentleman, purposely misunderstanding his motive, overwhelmed him +with so many apologies and expressions of regret at the irksome +and perhaps inconvenient delay "which you suffer from through +your good-natured acceptance of our invitation" that the other +was obliged to refrain from pursuing the subject further. + +"Even my regard for you, my dear d'Alcacer, could not induce me +to submit to such a bare-faced attempt at extortion," affirmed +Mr. Travers with uncompromising virtue. "The man wanted to force +his services upon me, and then put in a heavy claim for salvage. +That is the whole secret--you may depend on it. I detected him at +once, of course." The eye-glass glittered perspicuously. "He +underrated my intelligence; and what a violent scoundrel! The +existence of such a man in the time we live in is a scandal." + +D'Alcacer retired, and, full of vague forebodings, tried in vain +for hours to interest himself in a book. Mr. Travers walked up +and down restlessly, trying to persuade himself that his +indignation was based on purely moral grounds. The glaring day, +like a mass of white-hot iron withdrawn from the fire, was losing +gradually its heat and its glare in a richer deepening of tone. +At the usual time two seamen, walking noiselessly aft in their +yachting shoes, rolled up in silence the quarter-deck screens; +and the coast, the shallows, the dark islets and the snowy +sandbanks uncovered thus day after day were seen once more in +their aspect of dumb watchfulness. The brig, swung end on in the +foreground, her squared yards crossing heavily the soaring +symmetry of the rigging, resembled a creature instinct with life, +with the power of springing into action lurking in the light +grace of its repose. + +A pair of stewards in white jackets with brass buttons appeared +on deck and began to flit about without a sound, laying the table +for dinner on the flat top of the cabin skylight. The sun, +drifting away toward other lands, toward other seas, toward other +men; the sun, all red in a cloudless sky raked the yacht with a +parting salvo of crimson rays that shattered themselves into +sparks of fire upon the crystal and silver of the dinner-service, +put a short flame into the blades of knives, and spread a rosy +tint over the white of plates. A trail of purple, like a smear of +blood on a blue shield, lay over the sea. + +On sitting down Mr. Travers alluded in a vexed tone to the +necessity of living on preserves, all the stock of fresh +provisions for the passage to Batavia having been already +consumed. It was distinctly unpleasant. + +"I don't travel for my pleasure, however," he added; "and the +belief that the sacrifice of my time and comfort will be +productive of some good to the world at large would make up for +any amount of privations." + +Mrs. Travers and d'Alcacer seemed unable to shake off a strong +aversion to talk, and the conversation, like an expiring breeze, +kept on dying out repeatedly after each languid gust. The large +silence of the horizon, the profound repose of all things +visible, enveloping the bodies and penetrating the souls with +their quieting influence, stilled thought as well as voice. For a +long time no one spoke. Behind the taciturnity of the masters the +servants hovered without noise. + +Suddenly, Mr. Travers, as if concluding a train of thought, +muttered aloud: + +"I own with regret I did in a measure lose my temper; but then +you will admit that the existence of such a man is a disgrace to +civilization." + +This remark was not taken up and he returned for a time to the +nursing of his indignation, at the bottom of which, like a +monster in a fog, crept a bizarre feeling of rancour. He waved +away an offered dish. + +"This coast," he began again, "has been placed under the sole +protection of Holland by the Treaty of 1820. The Treaty of 1820 +creates special rights and obligations. . . ." + +Both his hearers felt vividly the urgent necessity to hear no +more. D'Alcacer, uncomfortable on a campstool, sat stiff and +stared at the glass stopper of a carafe. Mrs. Travers turned a +little sideways and leaning on her elbow rested her head on the +palm of her hand like one thinking about matters of profound +import. Mr. Travers talked; he talked inflexibly, in a harsh +blank voice, as if reading a proclamation. The other two, as if +in a state of incomplete trance, had their ears assailed by +fragments of official verbiage. + +"An international understanding--the duty to civilize--failed to +carry out--compact--Canning--" D'Alcacer became attentive for a +moment. "--not that this attempt, almost amusing in its +impudence, influences my opinion. I won't admit the possibility +of any violence being offered to people of our position. It is +the social aspect of such an incident I am desirous of +criticising." + +Here d'Alcacer lost himself again in the recollection of Mrs. +Travers and Immada looking at each other--the beginning and the +end, the flower and the leaf, the phrase and the cry. Mr. +Travers' voice went on dogmatic and obstinate for a long time. +The end came with a certain vehemence. + +"And if the inferior race must perish, it is a gain, a step +toward the perfecting of society which is the aim of progress." + +He ceased. The sparks of sunset in crystal and silver had gone +out, and around the yacht the expanse of coast and Shallows +seemed to await, unmoved, the coming of utter darkness. The +dinner was over a long time ago and the patient stewards had been +waiting, stoical in the downpour of words like sentries under a +shower. + +Mrs. Travers rose nervously and going aft began to gaze at the +coast. Behind her the sun, sunk already, seemed to force through +the mass of waters the glow of an unextinguishable fire, and +below her feet, on each side of the yacht, the lustrous sea, as +if reflecting the colour of her eyes, was tinged a sombre violet +hue. + +D'Alcacer came up to her with quiet footsteps and for some time +they leaned side by side over the rail in silence. Then he +said--"How quiet it is!" and she seemed to perceive that the +quietness of that evening was more profound and more significant +than ever before. Almost without knowing it she murmured--"It's +like a dream." Another long silence ensued; the tranquillity of +the universe had such an August ampleness that the sounds +remained on the lips as if checked by the fear of profanation. +The sky was limpid like a diamond, and under the last gleams of +sunset the night was spreading its veil over the earth. There was +something precious and soothing in the beautifully serene end of +that expiring day, of the day vibrating, glittering and ardent, +and dying now in infinite peace, without a stir, without a +tremor, without a sigh--in the certitude of resurrection. + +Then all at once the shadow deepened swiftly, the stars came out +in a crowd, scattering a rain of pale sparks upon the blackness +of the water, while the coast stretched low down, a dark belt +without a gleam. Above it the top-hamper of the brig loomed +indistinct and high. + +Mrs. Travers spoke first. + +"How unnaturally quiet! It is like a desert of land and water +without a living soul." + +"One man at least dwells in it," said d'Alcacer, lightly, "and if +he is to be believed there are other men, full of evil +intentions." + +"Do you think it is true?" Mrs. Travers asked. + +Before answering d'Alcacer tried to see the expression of her +face but the obscurity was too profound already. + +"How can one see a dark truth on such a dark night?" he said, +evasively. "But it is easy to believe in evil, here or anywhere +else." + +She seemed to be lost in thought for a while. + +"And that man himself?" she asked. + +After some time d'Alcacer began to speak slowly. "Rough, +uncommon, decidedly uncommon of his kind. Not at all what Don +Martin thinks him to be. For the rest--mysterious to me. He is +YOUR countryman after all-- " + +She seemed quite surprised by that view. + +"Yes," she said, slowly. "But you know, I can not --what shall I +say?--imagine him at all. He has nothing in common with the +mankind I know. There is nothing to begin upon. How does such a +man live? What are his thoughts? His actions? His affections? +His--" + +"His conventions," suggested d'Alcacer. "That would include +everything." + +Mr. Travers appeared suddenly behind them with a glowing cigar in +his teeth. He took it between his fingers to declare with +persistent acrimony that no amount of "scoundrelly intimidation" +would prevent him from having his usual walk. There was about +three hundred yards to the southward of the yacht a sandbank +nearly a mile long, gleaming a silvery white in the darkness, +plumetted in the centre with a thicket of dry bushes that rustled +very loud in the slightest stir of the heavy night air. The day +after the stranding they had landed on it "to stretch their legs +a bit," as the sailing-master defined it, and every evening +since, as if exercising a privilege or performing a duty, the +three paced there for an hour backward and forward lost in dusky +immensity, threading at the edge of water the belt of damp sand, +smooth, level, elastic to the touch like living flesh and +sweating a little under the pressure of their feet. + +This time d'Alcacer alone followed Mr. Travers. Mrs. Travers +heard them get into the yacht's smallest boat, and the +night-watchman, tugging at a pair of sculls, pulled them off to +the nearest point. Then the man returned. He came up the ladder +and she heard him say to someone on deck: + +"Orders to go back in an hour." + +His footsteps died out forward, and a somnolent, unbreathing +repose took possession of the stranded yacht. + + + +VI + +After a time this absolute silence which she almost could feel +pressing upon her on all sides induced in Mrs. Travers a state of +hallucination. She saw herself standing alone, at the end of +time, on the brink of days. All was unmoving as if the dawn would +never come, the stars would never fade, the sun would never rise +any more; all was mute, still, dead--as if the shadow of the +outer darkness, the shadow of the uninterrupted, of the +everlasting night that fills the universe, the shadow of the +night so profound and so vast that the blazing suns lost in it +are only like sparks, like pin-points of fire, the restless +shadow that like a suspicion of an evil truth darkens everything +upon the earth on its passage, had enveloped her, had stood +arrested as if to remain with her forever. + +And there was such a finality in that illusion, such an accord +with the trend of her thought that when she murmured into the +darkness a faint "so be it" she seemed to have spoken one of +those sentences that resume and close a life. + +As a young girl, often reproved for her romantic ideas, she had +dreams where the sincerity of a great passion appeared like the +ideal fulfilment and the only truth of life. Entering the world +she discovered that ideal to be unattainable because the world is +too prudent to be sincere. Then she hoped that she could find the +truth of life an ambition which she understood as a lifelong +devotion to some unselfish ideal. Mr. Travers' name was on men's +lips; he seemed capable of enthusiasm and of devotion; he +impressed her imagination by his impenetrability. She married +him, found him enthusiastically devoted to the nursing of his own +career, and had nothing to hope for now. + +That her husband should be bewildered by the curious +misunderstanding which had taken place and also permanently +grieved by her disloyalty to his respectable ideals was only +natural. He was, however, perfectly satisfied with her beauty, +her brilliance, and her useful connections. She was admired, she +was envied; she was surrounded by splendour and adulation; the +days went on rapid, brilliant, uniform, without a glimpse of +sincerity or true passion, without a single true emotion --not +even that of a great sorrow. And swiftly and stealthily they had +led her on and on, to this evening, to this coast, to this sea, +to this moment of time and to this spot on the earth's surface +where she felt unerringly that the moving shadow of the unbroken +night had stood still to remain with her forever. + +"So be it!" she murmured, resigned and defiant, at the mute and +smooth obscurity that hung before her eyes in a black curtain +without a fold; and as if in answer to that whisper a lantern was +run up to the foreyard-arm of the brig. She saw it ascend +swinging for a. short space, and suddenly remain motionless in +the air, piercing the dense night between the two vessels by its +glance of flame that strong and steady seemed, from afar, to fall +upon her alone. + +Her thoughts, like a fascinated moth, went fluttering toward that +light--that man--that girl, who had known war, danger, seen death +near, had obtained evidently the devotion of that man. The +occurrences of the afternoon had been strange in themselves, but +what struck her artistic sense was the vigour of their +presentation. They outlined themselves before her memory with the +clear simplicity of some immortal legend. They were mysterious, +but she felt certain they were absolutely true. They embodied +artless and masterful feelings; such, no doubt, as had swayed +mankind in the simplicity of its youth. She envied, for a moment, +the lot of that humble and obscure sister. Nothing stood between +that girl and the truth of her sensations. She could be sincerely +courageous, and tender and passionate and--well--ferocious. Why +not ferocious? She could know the truth of terror--and of +affection, absolutely, without artificial trammels, without the +pain of restraint. + +Thinking of what such life could be Mrs. Travers felt invaded by +that inexplicable exaltation which the consciousness of their +physical capacities so often gives to intellectual beings. She +glowed with a sudden persuasion that she also could be equal to +such an existence; and her heart was dilated with a momentary +longing to know the naked truth of things; the naked truth of +life and passion buried under the growth of centuries. + +She glowed and, suddenly, she quivered with the shock of coming +to herself as if she had fallen down from a star. There was a +sound of rippling water and a shapeless mass glided out of the +dark void she confronted. A voice below her feet said: + +"I made out your shape--on the sky." A cry of surprise expired on +her lips and she could only peer downward. Lingard, alone in the +brig's dinghy, with another stroke sent the light boat nearly +under the yacht's counter, laid his sculls in, and rose from the +thwart. His head and shoulders loomed up alongside and he had the +appearance of standing upon the sea. Involuntarily Mrs. Travers +made a movement of retreat. + +"Stop," he said, anxiously, "don't speak loud. No one must know. +Where do your people think themselves, I wonder? In a dock at +home? And you--" + +"My husband is not on board," she interrupted, hurriedly. + +"I know." + +She bent a little more over the rail. + +"Then you are having us watched. Why?" + +"Somebody must watch. Your people keep such a good +look-out--don't they? Yes. Ever since dark one of my boats has +been dodging astern here, in the deep water. I swore to myself I +would never see one of you, never speak to one of you here, that +I would be dumb, blind, deaf. And--here I am!" + +Mrs. Travers' alarm and mistrust were replaced by an immense +curiosity, burning, yet quiet, too, as if before the inevitable +work of destiny. She looked downward at Lingard. His head was +bared, and, with one hand upon the ship's side, he seemed to be +thinking deeply. + +"Because you had something more to tell us," Mrs. Travers +suggested, gently. + +"Yes," he said in a low tone and without moving in the least. + +"Will you come on board and wait?" she asked. + +"Who? I!" He lifted his head so quickly as to startle her. "I +have nothing to say to him; and I'll never put my foot on board +this craft. I've been told to go. That's enough." + +"He is accustomed to be addressed deferentially," she said after +a pause, "and you--" + +"Who is he?" asked Lingard, simply. + +These three words seemed to her to scatter her past in the +air--like smoke. They robbed all the multitude of mankind of +every vestige of importance. She was amazed to find that on this +night, in this place, there could be no adequate answer to the +searching naiveness of that question. + +"I didn't ask for much," Lingard began again. "Did I? Only that +you all should come on board my brig for five days. That's all. . +. . Do I look like a liar? There are things I could not tell him. +I couldn't explain--I couldn't--not to him--to no man--to no man +in the world--" + +His voice dropped. + +"Not to myself," he ended as if in a dream. + +"We have remained unmolested so long here," began Mrs. Travers a +little unsteadily, "that it makes it very difficult to believe in +danger, now. We saw no one all these days except those two people +who came for you. If you may not explain--" + +"Of course, you can't be expected to see through a wall," broke +in Lingard. "This coast's like a wall, but I know what's on the +other side. . . . A yacht here, of all things that float! When I +set eyes on her I could fancy she hadn't been more than an hour +from home. Nothing but the look of her spars made me think of old +times. And then the faces of the chaps on board. I seemed to know +them all. It was like home coming to me when I wasn't thinking of +it. And I hated the sight of you all." + +"If we are exposed to any peril," she said after a pause during +which she tried to penetrate the secret of passion hidden behind +that man's words, "it need not affect you. Our other boat is gone +to the Straits and effective help is sure to come very soon." + +"Affect me! Is that precious watchman of yours coming aft? I +don't want anybody to know I came here again begging, even of +you. Is he coming aft? . . . Listen! I've stopped your other +boat." + +His head and shoulders disappeared as though he had dived into a +denser layer of obscurity floating on the water. The watchman, +who had the intention to stretch himself in one of the deck +chairs, catching sight of the owner's wife, walked straight to +the lamp that hung under the ridge pole of the awning, and after +fumbling with it for a time went away forward with an indolent +gait. + +"You dared!" Mrs. Travers whispered down in an intense tone; and +directly, Lingard's head emerged again below her with an upturned +face. + +"It was dare--or give up. The help from the Straits would have +been too late anyhow if I hadn't the power to keep you safe; and +if I had the power I could see you through it--alone. I expected +to find a reasonable man to talk to. I ought to have known +better. You come from too far to understand these things. Well, I +dared; I've sent after your other boat a fellow who, with me at +his back, would try to stop the governor of the Straits himself. +He will do it. Perhaps it's done already. You have nothing to +hope for. But I am here. You said you believed I meant well--" + +"Yes," she murmured. + +"That's why I thought I would tell you everything. I had to begin +with this business about the boat. And what do you think of me +now? I've cut you off from the rest of the earth. You people +would disappear like a stone in the water. You left one foreign +port for another. Who's there to trouble about what became of +you? Who would know? Who could guess? It would be months before +they began to stir." + +"I understand," she said, steadily, "we are helpless." + +"And alone," he added. + +After a pause she said in a deliberate, restrained voice: + +"What does this mean? Plunder, captivity?" + +"It would have meant death if I hadn't been here," he answered. + +"But you have the power to--" + +""Why, do you think, you are alive yet?" he cried. "Jorgenson has +been arguing with them on shore," he went on, more calmly, with a +swing of his arm toward where the night seemed darkest. "Do you +think he would have kept them back if they hadn't expected me +every day? His words would have been nothing without my fist." + +She heard a dull blow struck on the side of the yacht and +concealed in the same darkness that wrapped the unconcern of the +earth and sea, the fury and the pain of hearts; she smiled above +his head, fascinated by the simplicity of images and expressions. + +Lingard made a brusque movement, the lively little boat being +unsteady under his feet, and she spoke slowly, absently, as if +her thought had been lost in the vagueness of her sensations. + +"And this--this--Jorgenson, you said? Who is he?" + +"A man," he answered, "a man like myself." + +"Like yourself?" + +"Just like myself," he said with strange reluctance, as if +admitting a painful truth. "More sense, perhaps, but less luck. +Though, since your yacht has turned up here, I begin to think +that my luck is nothing much to boast of either." + +"Is our presence here so fatal?" + +"It may be death to some. It may be worse than death to me. And +it rests with you in a way. Think of that! I can never find such +another chance again. But that's nothing! A man who has saved my +life once and that I passed my word to would think I had thrown +him over. But that's nothing! Listen! As true as I stand here in +my boat talking to you, I believe the girl would die of grief." + +"You love her," she said, softly. + +"Like my own daughter," he cried, low. + +Mrs. Travers said, "Oh!" faintly, and for a moment there was a +silence, then he began again: + +"Look here. When I was a boy in a trawler, and looked at you +yacht people, in the Channel ports, you were as strange to me as +the Malays here are strange to you. I left home sixteen years ago +and fought my way all round the earth. I had the time to forget +where I began. What are you to me against these two? If I was to +die here on the spot would you care? No one would care at home. +No one in the whole world--but these two." + +"What can I do?" she asked, and waited, leaning over. + +He seemed to reflect, then lifting his head, spoke gently: + +"Do you understand the danger you are in? Are you afraid?" + +"I understand the expression you used, of course. Understand the +danger?" she went on. "No--decidedly no. And-- honestly--I am not +afraid." + +"Aren't you?" he said in a disappointed voice. "Perhaps you don't +believe me? I believed you, though, when you said you were sure I +meant well. I trusted you enough to come here asking for your +help --telling you what no one knows." + +"You mistake me," she said with impulsive earnestness. "This is +so extraordinarily unusual--sudden--outside my experience." + +"Aye!" he murmured, "what would you know of danger and trouble? +You! But perhaps by thinking it over--" + +"You want me to think myself into a fright!" Mrs. Travers laughed +lightly, and in the gloom of his thought this flash of joyous +sound was incongruous and almost terrible. Next moment the night +appeared brilliant as day, warm as sunshine; but when she ceased +the returning darkness gave him pain as if it had struck heavily +against his breast. "I don't think I could do that," she finished +in a serious tone. + +"Couldn't you?" He hesitated, perplexed. "Things are bad enough +to make it no shame. I tell you," he said, rapidly, "and I am not +a timid man, I may not be able to do much if you people don't +help me." + +"You want me to pretend I am alarmed?" she asked, quickly. + +"Aye, to pretend--as well you may. It's a lot to ask of you--who +perhaps never had to make-believe a thing in your life--isn't +it?" + +"It is," she said after a time. + +The unexpected bitterness of her tone struck Lingard with dismay. + +"Don't be offended," he entreated. "I've got to plan a way out of +this mess. It's no play either. Could you pretend?" + +"Perhaps, if I tried very hard. But to what end?" + +"You must all shift aboard the brig," he began, speaking quickly, +"and then we may get over this trouble without coming to blows. +Now, if you were to say that you wish it; that you feel unsafe in +the yacht--don't you see?" + +"I see," she pronounced, thoughtfully. + +"The brig is small but the cuddy is fit for a lady," went on +Lingard with animation. + +"Has it not already sheltered a princess?" she commented, coolly. + +"And I shall not intrude." + +"This is an inducement." + +"Nobody will dare to intrude. You needn't even see me." + +"This is almost decisive, only--" + +"I know my place." + +"Only, I might not have the influence," she finished. + +"That I can not believe," he said, roughly. "The long and the +short of it is you don't trust me because you think that only +people of your own condition speak the truth always." + +"Evidently," she murmured. + +"You say to yourself--here's a fellow deep in with pirates, +thieves, niggers--" + +"To be sure--" + +"A man I never saw the like before," went on Lingard, headlong, +"a--ruffian." + +He checked himself, full of confusion. After a time he heard her +saying, calmly: + +"You are like other men in this, that you get angry when you can +not have your way at once." + +"I angry!" he exclaimed in deadened voice. "You do not +understand. I am thinking of you also--it is hard on me--" + +"I mistrust not you, but my own power. You have produced an +unfortunate impression on Mr. Travers." + +"Unfortunate impression! He treated me as if I had been a +long-shore loafer. Never mind that. He is your husband. Fear in +those you care for is hard to bear for any man. And so, he--" + +"What Machiavellism!" + +"Eh, what did you say?" + +"I only wondered where you had observed that. On the sea?" + +"Observed what?" he said, absently. Then pursuing his idea--"One +word from you ought to be enough." + +"You think so?" + +"I am sure of it. Why, even I, myself--" + +"Of course," she interrupted. "But don't you think that after +parting with you on such--such--inimical terms, there would be a +difficulty in resuming relations?" + +"A man like me would do anything for money--don't you see?" + +After a pause she asked: + +"And would you care for that argument to be used?" + +"As long as you know better!" + +His voice vibrated--she drew back disturbed, as if unexpectedly +he had touched her. + +"What can there be at stake?" she began, wonderingly. + +"A kingdom," said Lingard. + +Mrs. Travers leaned far over the rail, staring, and their faces, +one above the other, came very close together. + +"Not for yourself?" she whispered. + +He felt the touch of her breath on his forehead and remained +still for a moment, perfectly still as if he did not intend to +move or speak any more. + +"Those things," he began, suddenly, "come in your way, when you +don't think, and they get all round you before you know what you +mean to do. When I went into that bay in New Guinea I never +guessed where that course would take me to. I could tell you a +story. You would understand! You! You!" + +He stammered, hesitated, and suddenly spoke, liberating the +visions of two years into the night where Mrs. Travers could +follow them as if outlined in words of fire. + + + +VII + +His tale was as startling as the discovery of a new world. She +was being taken along the boundary of an exciting existence, and +she looked into it through the guileless enthusiasm of the +narrator. The heroic quality of the feelings concealed what was +disproportionate and absurd in that gratitude, in that +friendship, in that inexplicable devotion. The headlong +fierceness of purpose invested his obscure design of conquest +with the proportions of a great enterprise. It was clear that no +vision of a subjugated world could have been more inspiring to +the most famous adventurer of history. + +From time to time he interrupted himself to ask, confidently, as +if he had been speaking to an old friend, "What would you have +done?" and hurried on without pausing for approval. + +It struck her that there was a great passion in all this, the +beauty of an implanted faculty of affection that had found +itself, its immediate need of an object and the way of expansion; +a tenderness expressed violently; a tenderness that could only be +satisfied by backing human beings against their own destiny. +Perhaps her hatred of convention, trammelling the frankness of +her own impulses, had rendered her more alert to perceive what is +intrinsically great and profound within the forms of human folly, +so simple and so infinitely varied according to the region of the +earth and to the moment of time. + +What of it that the narrator was only a roving seaman; the +kingdom of the jungle, the men of the forest, the lives obscure! +That simple soul was possessed by the greatness of the idea; +there was nothing sordid in its flaming impulses. When she once +understood that, the story appealed to the audacity of her +thoughts, and she became so charmed with what she heard that she +forgot where she was. She forgot that she was personally close to +that tale which she saw detached, far away from her, truth or +fiction, presented in picturesque speech, real only by the +response of her emotion. + +Lingard paused. In the cessation of the impassioned murmur she +began to reflect. And at first it was only an oppressive notion +of there being some significance that really mattered in this +man's story. That mattered to her. For the first time the shadow +of danger and death crossed her mind. Was that the significance? +Suddenly, in a flash of acute discernment, she saw herself +involved helplessly in that story, as one is involved in a +natural cataclysm. + +He was speaking again. He had not been silent more than a minute. +It seemed to Mrs. Travers that years had elapsed, so different +now was the effect of his words. Her mind was agitated as if his +coming to speak and confide in her had been a tremendous +occurrence. It was a fact of her own existence; it was part of +the story also. This was the disturbing thought. She heard him +pronounce several names: Belarab, Daman, Tengga, Ningrat. These +belonged now to her life and she was appalled to find she was +unable to connect these names with any human appearance. They +stood out alone, as if written on the night; they took on a +symbolic shape; they imposed themselves upon her senses. She +whispered as if pondering: "Belarab, Daman, Ningrat," and these +barbarous sounds seemed to possess an exceptional energy, a fatal +aspect, the savour of madness. + +"Not one of them but has a heavy score to settle with the whites. +What's that to me! I had somehow to get men who would fight. I +risked my life to get that lot. I made them promises which I +shall keep--or--! Can you see now why I dared to stop your boat? +I am in so deep that I care for no Sir John in the world. When I +look at the work ahead I care for nothing. I gave you one +chance--one good chance. That I had to do. No! I suppose I didn't +look enough of a gentleman. Yes! Yes! That's it. Yet I know what +a gentleman is. I lived with them for years. I chummed with them- +-yes--on gold-fields and in other places where a man has got to +show the stuff that's in him. Some of them write from home to me +here--such as you see me, because I--never mind! And I know what +a gentleman would do. Come! Wouldn't he treat a stranger fairly? +Wouldn't he remember that no man is a liar till you prove him so? +Wouldn't he keep his word wherever given? Well, I am going to do +that. Not a hair of your head shall be touched as long as I +live!" + +She had regained much of her composure but at these words she +felt that staggering sense of utter insecurity which is given one +by the first tremor of an earthquake. It was followed by an +expectant stillness of sensations. She remained silent. He +thought she did not believe him. + +"Come! What on earth do you think brought me here--to--to--talk +like this to you? There was Hassim--Rajah Tulla, I should +say--who was asking me this afternoon: 'What will you do now with +these, your people?' I believe he thinks yet I fetched you here +for some reason. You can't tell what crooked notion they will get +into their thick heads. It's enough to make one swear." He swore. +"My people! Are you? How much? Say--how much? You're no more mine +than I am yours. Would any of you fine folks at home face black +ruin to save a fishing smack's crew from getting drowned?" + +Notwithstanding that sense of insecurity which lingered faintly +in her mind she had no image of death before her. She felt +intensely alive. She felt alive in a flush of strength, with an +impression of novelty as though life had been the gift of this +very moment. The danger hidden in the night gave no sign to +awaken her terror, but the workings of a human soul, simple and +violent, were laid bare before her and had the disturbing charm +of an unheard-of experience. She was listening to a man who +concealed nothing. She said, interrogatively: + +"And yet you have come?" + +"Yes," he answered, "to you--and for you only." + +The flood tide running strong over the banks made a placid +trickling sound about the yacht's rudder. + +"I would not be saved alone." + +"Then you must bring them over yourself," he said in a sombre +tone. "There's the brig. You have me--my men--my guns. You know +what to do. + +"I will try," she said. + +"Very well. I am sorry for the poor devils forward there if you +fail. But of course you won't. Watch that light on the brig. I +had it hoisted on purpose. The trouble may be nearer than we +think. Two of my boats are gone scouting and if the news they +bring me is bad the light will be lowered. Think what that means. +And I've told you what I have told nobody. Think of my feelings +also. I told you because I--because I had to." + +He gave a shove against the yacht's side and glided away from +under her eyes. A rippling sound died out. + +She walked away from the rail. The lamp and the skylights shone +faintly along the dark stretch of the decks. This evening was +like the last--like all the evenings before. + +"Is all this I have heard possible?" she asked herself. "No--but +it is true." + +She sat down in a deck chair to think and found she could only +remember. She jumped up. She was sure somebody was hailing the +yacht faintly. Was that man hailing? She listened, and hearing +nothing was annoyed with herself for being haunted by a voice. + +"He said he could trust me. Now, what is this danger? What is +danger?" she meditated. + +Footsteps were coming from forward. The figure of the watchman +flitted vaguely over the gangway. He was whistling softly and +vanished. Hollow sounds in the boat were succeeded by a splash of +oars. The night swallowed these slight noises. Mrs. Travers sat +down again and found herself much calmer. + +She had the faculty of being able to think her own thoughts--and +the courage. She could take no action of any kind till her +husband's return. Lingard's warnings were not what had impressed +her most. This man had presented his innermost self unclothed by +any subterfuge. There were in plain sight his desires, his +perplexities, affections, doubts, his violence, his folly; and +the existence they made up was lawless but not vile. She had too +much elevation of mind to look upon him from any other but a +strictly human standpoint. If he trusted her (how strange; why +should he? Was he wrong?) she accepted the trust with scrupulous +fairness. And when it dawned upon her that of all the men in the +world this unquestionably was the one she knew best, she had a +moment of wonder followed by an impression of profound sadness. +It seemed an unfortunate matter that concerned her alone. + +Her thought was suspended while she listened attentively for the +return of the yacht's boat. She was dismayed at the task before +her. Not a sound broke the stillness and she felt as if she were +lost in empty space. Then suddenly someone amidships yawned +immensely and said: "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" A voice asked: "Ain't +they back yet?" A negative grunt answered. + +Mrs. Travers found that Lingard was touching, because he could be +understood. How simple was life, she reflected. She was frank +with herself. She considered him apart from social organization. +She discovered he had no place in it. How delightful! Here was a +human being and the naked truth of things was not so very far +from her notwithstanding the growth of centuries. Then it +occurred to her that this man by his action stripped her at once +of her position, of her wealth, of her rank, of her past. "I am +helpless. What remains?" she asked herself. Nothing! Anybody +there might have suggested: "Your presence." She was too +artificial yet to think of her beauty; and yet the power of +personality is part of the naked truth of things. + +She looked over her shoulder, and saw the light at the brig's +foreyard-arm burning with a strong, calm flame in the dust of +starlight suspended above the coast. She heard the heavy bump as +of a boat run headlong against the ladder. They were back! She +rose in sudden and extreme agitation. What should she say? How +much? How to begin? Why say anything? It would be absurd, like +talking seriously about a dream. She would not dare! In a moment +she was driven into a state of mind bordering on distraction. She +heard somebody run up the gangway steps. With the idea of gaining +time she walked rapidly aft to the taffrail. The light of the +brig faced her without a flicker, enormous amongst the suns +scattered in the immensity of the night. + +She fixed her eyes on it. She thought: "I shan't tell him +anything. Impossible. No! I shall tell everything." She expected +every moment to hear her husband's voice and the suspense was +intolerable because she felt that then she must decide. Somebody +on deck was babbling excitedly. She devoutly hoped d'Alcacer +would speak first and thus put off the fatal moment. A voice said +roughly: "What's that?" And in the midst of her distress she +recognized Carter's voice, having noticed that young man who was +of a different stamp from the rest of the crew. She came to the +conclusion that the matter could be related jocularly, or--why +not pretend fear? At that moment the brig's yard-arm light she +was looking at trembled distinctly, and she was dumfounded as if +she had seen a commotion in the firmament. With her lips open for +a cry she saw it fall straight down several feet, flicker, and go +out. All perplexity passed from her mind. This first fact of the +danger gave her a thrill of quite a new emotion. Something had to +be done at once. For some remote reason she felt ashamed of her +hesitations. + +She moved swiftly forward and under the lamp came face to face +with Carter who was coming aft. Both stopped, staring, the light +fell on their faces, and both were struck by each other's +expression. The four eyes shone wide. + +"You have seen?" she asked, beginning to tremble. + +"How do you know?" he said, at the same time, evidently +surprised. + +Suddenly she saw that everybody was on deck. + +"The light is down," she stammered. + +"The gentlemen are lost," said Carter. Then he perceived she did +not seem to understand. "Kidnapped off the sandbank," he +continued, looking at her fixedly to see how she would take it. +She seemed calm. "Kidnapped like a pair of lambs! Not a squeak," +he burst out with indignation. "But the sandbank is long and they +might have been at the other end. You were on deck, ma'am?" he +asked. + +"Yes," she murmured. "In the chair here." + +"We were all down below. I had to rest a little. When I came up +the watchman was asleep. He swears he wasn't, but I know better. +Nobody heard any noise, unless you did. But perhaps you were +asleep?" he asked, deferentially. + +"Yes--no--I must have been," she said, faintly. + + + +VIII + +Lingard's soul was exalted by his talk with Mrs. Travers, by the +strain of incertitude and by extreme fatigue. On returning on +board he asked after Hassim and was told that the Rajah and his +sister had gone off in their canoe promising to return before +midnight. The boats sent to scout between the islets north and +south of the anchorage had not come back yet. He went into his +cabin and throwing himself on the couch closed his eyes thinking: +"I must sleep or I shall go mad." + +At times he felt an unshaken confidence in Mrs. Travers--then he +remembered her face. Next moment the face would fade, he would +make an effort to hold on to the image, fail--and then become +convinced without the shadow of a doubt that he was utterly lost, +unless he let all these people be wiped off the face of the +earth. + +"They all heard that man order me out of his ship," he thought, +and thereupon for a second or so he contemplated without +flinching the lurid image of a massacre. "And yet I had to tell +her that not a hair of her head shall be touched. Not a hair." + +And irrationally at the recollection of these words there seemed +to be no trouble of any kind left in the world. Now and then, +however, there were black instants when from sheer weariness he +thought of nothing at all; and during one of these he fell +asleep, losing the consciousness of external things as suddenly +as if he had been felled by a blow on the head. + +When he sat up, almost before he was properly awake, his first +alarmed conviction was that he had slept the night through. There +was a light in the cuddy and through the open door of his cabin +he saw distinctly Mrs. Travers pass out of view across the +lighted space. + +"They did come on board after all," he thought--"how is it I +haven't been called!" + +He darted into the cuddy. Nobody! Looking up at the clock in the +skylight he was vexed to see it had stopped till his ear caught +the faint beat of the mechanism. It was going then! He could not +have been asleep more than ten minutes. He had not been on board +more than twenty! + +So it was only a deception; he had seen no one. And yet he +remembered the turn of the head, the line of the neck, the colour +of the hair, the movement of the passing figure. He returned +spiritlessly to his state-room muttering, "No more sleep for me +to-night," and came out directly, holding a few sheets of paper +covered with a high, angular handwriting. + +This was Jorgenson's letter written three days before and +entrusted to Hassim. Lingard had read it already twice, but he +turned up the lamp a little higher and sat down to read it again. +On the red shield above his head the gilt sheaf of thunderbolts +darting between the initials of his name seemed to be aimed +straight at the nape of his neck as he sat with bared elbows +spread on the table, poring over the crumpled sheets. The letter +began: + +Hassim and Immada are going out to-night to look for you. You are +behind your time and every passing day makes things worse. + +Ten days ago three of Belarab's men, who had been collecting +turtles' eggs on the islets, came flying back with a story of a +ship stranded on the outer mudflats. Belarab at once forbade any +boat from leaving the lagoon. So far good. There was a great +excitement in the village. I judge it must be a schooner-- +probably some fool of a trader. However, you will know all about +her when you read this. You may say I might have pulled out to +sea to have a look for myself. But besides Belarab's orders to +the contrary, which I would attend to for the sake of example, +all you are worth in this world, Tom, is here in the Emma, under +my feet, and I would not leave my charge even for half a day. +Hassim attended the council held every evening in the shed +outside Belarab's stockade. That holy man Ningrat was for looting +that vessel. Hassim reproved him saying that the vessel probably +was sent by you because no white men were known to come inside +the shoals. Belarab backed up Hassim. Ningrat was very angry and +reproached Belarab for keeping him, Ningrat, short of opium to +smoke. He began by calling him "O! son," and ended by shouting, +"O! you worse than an unbeliever!" There was a hullabaloo. The +followers of Tengga were ready to interfere and you know how it +is between Tengga and Belarab. Tengga always wanted to oust +Belarab, and his chances were getting pretty good before you +turned up and armed Belarab's bodyguard with muskets. However, +Hassim stopped that row, and no one was hurt that time. Next day, +which was Friday, Ningrat after reading the prayers in the mosque +talked to the people outside. He bleated and capered like an old +goat, prophesying misfortune, ruin, and extermination if these +whites were allowed to get away. He is mad but then they think +him a saint, and he had been fighting the Dutch for years in his +young days. Six of Belarab's guard marched down the village +street carrying muskets at full cock and the crowd cleared out. +Ningrat was spirited away by Tengga's men into their master's +stockade. If it was not for the fear of you turning up any moment +there would have been a party-fight that evening. I think it is a +pity Tengga is not chief of the land instead of Belarab. A brave +and foresighted man, however treacherous at heart, can always be +trusted to a certain extent. One can never get anything clear +from Belarab. Peace! Peace! You know his fad. And this fad makes +him act silly. The peace racket will get him into a row. It may +cost him his life in the end. However, Tengga does not feel +himself strong enough yet to act with his own followers only and +Belarab has, on my advice, disarmed all villagers. His men went +into the houses and took away by force all the firearms and as +many spears as they could lay hands on. The women screamed abuse +of course, but there was no resistance. A few men were seen +clearing out into the forest with their arms. Note this, for it +means there is another power beside Belarab's in the village: the +growing power of Tengga. + +One morning--four days ago--I went to see Tengga. I found him by +the shore trimming a plank with a small hatchet while a slave +held an umbrella over his head. He is amusing himself in building +a boat just now. He threw his hatchet down to meet me and led me +by the hand to a shady spot. He told me frankly he had sent out +two good swimmers to observe the stranded vessel. These men stole +down the creek in a canoe and when on the sea coast swam from +sandbank to sandbank until they approached unobserved--I +think--to about fifty yards from that schooner What can that +craft be? I can't make it out. The men reported there were three +chiefs on board. One with a glittering eye, one a lean man in +white, and another without any hair on the face and dressed in a +different style. Could it be a woman? I don't know what to think. +I wish you were here. After a lot of chatter Tengga said: "Six +years ago I was ruler of a country and the Dutch drove me out. +The country was small but nothing is too small for them to take. +They pretended to give it back to my nephew--may he burn! I ran +away or they would have killed me. I am nothing here--but I +remember. These white people out there can not run away and they +are very few. There is perhaps a little to loot. I would give it +to my men who followed me in my calamity because I am their chief +and my father was the chief of their fathers." I pointed out the +imprudence of this. He said: "The dead do not show the way." To +this I remarked that the ignorant do not give information. Tengga +kept quiet for a while, then said: "We must not touch them +because their skin is like yours and to kill them would be wrong, +but at the bidding of you whites we may go and fight with people +of our own skin and our own faith--and that is good. I have +promised to Tuan Lingard twenty men and a prau to make war in +Wajo. The men are good and look at the prau; it is swift and +strong." I must say, Tom, the prau is the best craft of the kind +I have ever seen. I said you paid him well for the help. "And I +also would pay," says he, "if you let me have a few guns and a +little powder for my men. You and I shall share the loot of that +ship outside, and Tuan Lingard will not know. It is only a little +game. You have plenty of guns and powder under your care." He +meant in the Emma. On that I spoke out pretty straight and we got +rather warm until at last he gave me to understand that as he had +about forty followers of his own and I had only nine of Hassim's +chaps to defend the Emma with, he could very well go for me and +get the lot. "And then," says he, "I would be so strong that +everybody would be on my side." I discovered in the course of +further talk that there is a notion amongst many people that you +have come to grief in some way and won't show up here any more. +After this I saw the position was serious and I was in a hurry to +get back to the Emma, but pretending I did not care I smiled and +thanked Tengga for giving me warning of his intentions about me +and the Emma. At this he nearly choked himself with his betel +quid and fixing me with his little eyes, muttered: "Even a lizard +will give a fly the time to say its prayers." I turned my back on +him and was very thankful to get beyond the throw of a spear. I +haven't been out of the Emma since. + + + +IX + +The letter went on to enlarge on the intrigues of Tengga, the +wavering conduct of Belarab, and the state of the public mind. It +noted every gust of opinion and every event, with an earnestness +of belief in their importance befitting the chronicle of a crisis +in the history of an empire. The shade of Jorgenson had, indeed, +stepped back into the life of men. The old adventurer looked on +with a perfect understanding of the value of trifles, using his +eyes for that other man whose conscience would have the task to +unravel the tangle. Lingard lived through those days in the +Settlement and was thankful to Jorgenson; only as he lived not +from day to day but from sentence to sentence of the writing, +there was an effect of bewildering rapidity in the succession of +events that made him grunt with surprise sometimes or +growl--"What?" to himself angrily and turn back several lines or +a whole page more than once. Toward the end he had a heavy frown +of perplexity and fidgeted as he read: + +--and I began to think I could keep things quiet till you came or +those wretched white people got their schooner off, when Sherif +Daman arrived from the north on the very day he was expected, +with two Illanun praus. He looks like an Arab. It was very +evident to me he can wind the two Illanun pangerans round his +little finger. The two praus are large and armed. They came up +the creek, flags and streamers flying, beating drums and gongs, +and entered the lagoon with their decks full of armed men +brandishing two-handed swords and sounding the war cry. It is a +fine force for you, only Belarab who is a perverse devil would +not receive Sherif Daman at once. So Daman went to see Tengga who +detained him a very long time. Leaving Tengga he came on board +the Emma, and I could see directly there was something up. + +He began by asking me for the ammunition and weapons they are to +get from you, saying he was anxious to sail at once toward Wajo, +since it was agreed he was to precede you by a few days. I +replied that that was true enough but that I could not think of +giving him the powder and muskets till you came. He began to talk +about you and hinted that perhaps you will never come. "And no +matter," says he, "here is Rajah Hassim and the Lady Immada and +we would fight for them if no white man was left in the world. +Only we must have something to fight with." He pretended then to +forget me altogether and talked with Hassim while I sat +listening. He began to boast how well he got along the Bruni +coast. No Illanun prau had passed down that coast for years. + +Immada wanted me to give the arms he was asking for. The girl is +beside herself with fear of something happening that would put a +stopper on the Wajo expedition. She has set her mind on getting +her country back. Hassim is very reserved but he is very anxious, +too. Daman got nothing from me, and that very evening the praus +were ordered by Belarab to leave the lagoon. He does not trust +the Illanuns--and small blame to him. Sherif Daman went like a +lamb. He has no powder for his guns. As the praus passed by the +Emma he shouted to me he was going to wait for you outside the +creek. Tengga has given him a man who would show him the place. +All this looks very queer to me. + +Look out outside then. The praus are dodging amongst the islets. +Daman visits Tengga. Tengga called on me as a good friend to try +and persuade me to give Daman the arms and gunpowder he is so +anxious to get. Somehow or other they tried to get around +Belarab, who came to see me last night and hinted I had better do +so. He is anxious for these Illanuns to leave the neighbourhood. +He thinks that if they loot the schooner they will be off at +once. That's all he wants now. Immada has been to see Belarab's +women and stopped two nights in the stockade. Belarab's youngest +wife--he got married six weeks ago--is on the side of Tengga's +party because she thinks Belarab would get a share of the loot +and she got into her silly head there are jewels and silks in +that schooner. What between Tengga worrying him outside and the +women worrying him at home, Belarab had such a lively time of it +that he concluded he would go to pray at his father's tomb. So +for the last two days he has been away camping in that unhealthy +place. When he comes back he will be down with fever as sure as +fate and then he will be no good for anything. Tengga lights up +smoky fires often. Some signal to Daman. I go ashore with +Hassim's men and put them out. This is risking a fight every +time--for Tengga's men look very black at us. I don't know what +the next move may be. Hassim's as true as steel. Immada is very +unhappy. They will tell you many details I have no time to write. + +The last page fluttered on the table out of Lingard's fingers. He +sat very still for a moment looking straight before him, then +went on deck. + +"Our boats back yet?" he asked Shaw, whom he saw prowling on the +quarter-deck. + +"No, sir, I wish they were. I am waiting for them to go and turn +in," answered the mate in an aggrieved manner. + +"Lower that lantern forward there," cried Lingard, suddenly, in +Malay. + +"This trade isn't fit for a decent man," muttered Shaw to +himself, and he moved away to lean on the rail, looking moodily +to seaward. After a while: "There seems to be commotion on board +that yacht," he said. "I see a lot of lights moving about her +decks. Anything wrong, do you think, sir?" + +"No, I know what it is," said Lingard in a tone of elation. She +has done it! he thought. + +He returned to the cabin, put away Jorgenson's letter and pulled +out the drawer of the table. It was full of cartridges. He took a +musket down, loaded it, then took another and another. He +hammered at the waddings with fierce joyousness. The ramrods rang +and jumped. It seemed to him he was doing his share of some work +in which that woman was playing her part faithfully. "She has +done it," he repeated, mentally. "She will sit in the cuddy. She +will sleep in my berth. Well, I'm not ashamed of the brig. By +heavens--no! I shall keep away: never come near them as I've +promised. Now there's nothing more to say. I've told her +everything at once. There's nothing more." + +He felt a heaviness in his burning breast, in all his limbs as if +the blood in his veins had become molten lead. + +"I shall get the yacht off. Three, four days--no, a week." + +He found he couldn't do it under a week. It occurred to him he +would see her every day till the yacht was afloat. No, he +wouldn't intrude, but he was master and owner of the brig after +all. He didn't mean to skulk like a whipped cur about his own +decks. + +"It'll be ten days before the schooner is ready. I'll take every +scrap of ballast out of her. I'll strip her--I'll take her lower +masts out of her, by heavens! I'll make sure. Then another week +to fit out--and--goodbye. Wish I had never seen them. +Good-bye--forever. Home's the place for them. Not for me. On +another coast she would not have listened. Ah, but she is a +woman--every inch of her. I shall shake hands. Yes. I shall take +her hand--just before she goes. Why the devil not? I am master +here after all--in this brig--as good as any one--by heavens, +better than any one--better than any one on earth." + +He heard Shaw walk smartly forward above his head hailing: + +"What's that--a boat?" + +A voice answered indistinctly. + +"One of my boats is back," thought Lingard. "News about Daman +perhaps. I don't care if he kicks. I wish he would. I would soon +show her I can fight as well as I can handle the brig. Two praus. +Only two praus. I wouldn't mind if there were twenty. I would +sweep 'em off the sea--I would blow 'em out of the water--I would +make the brig walk over them. 'Now,' I'd say to her, 'you who are +not afraid, look how it's done!'" + +He felt light. He had the sensation of being whirled high in the +midst of an uproar and as powerless as a feather in a hurricane. +He shuddered profoundly. His arms hung down, and he stood before +the table staring like a man overcome by some fatal intelligence. + +Shaw, going into the waist to receive what he thought was one of +the brig's boats, came against Carter making his way aft +hurriedly. + +"Hullo! Is it you again?" he said, swiftly, barring the way. + +"I come from the yacht," began Carter with some impatience. + +"Where else could you come from?" said Shaw. "And what might you +want now?" + +"I want to see your skipper." + +"Well, you can't," declared Shaw, viciously. "He's turned in for +the night." + +"He expects me," said Carter, stamping his foot. "I've got to +tell him what happened." + +"Don't you fret yourself, young man," said Shaw in a superior +manner; "he knows all about it." + +They stood suddenly silent in the dark. Carter seemed at a loss +what to do. Shaw, though surprised by it, enjoyed the effect he +had produced. + +"Damn me, if I did not think so," murmured Carter to himself; +then drawling coolly asked--"And perhaps you know, too?" + +"What do you think? Think I am a dummy here? I ain't mate of this +brig for nothing." + +"No, you are not," said Carter with a certain bitterness of tone. +"People do all kinds of queer things for a living, and I am not +particular myself, but I would think twice before taking your +billet." + +"What? What do you in-si-nu-ate. My billet? You ain't fit for it, +you yacht-swabbing brass-buttoned imposter." + +"What's this? Any of our boats back?" asked Lingard from the +poop. "Let the seacannie in charge come to me at once." + +"There's only a message from the yacht," began Shaw, +deliberately. + +"Yacht! Get the deck lamps along here in the waist! See the +ladder lowered. Bear a hand, serang! Mr. Shaw! Burn the flare up +aft. Two of them! Give light to the yacht's boats that will be +coming alongside. Steward! Where's that steward? Turn him out +then." + +Bare feet began to patter all round Carter. Shadows glided +swiftly. + +"Are these flares coming? Where's the quartermaster on duty?" +shouted Lingard in English and Malay. "This way, come here! Put +it on a rocket stick--can't you? Hold over the side--thus! Stand +by with the lines for the boats forward there. Mr. Shaw--we want +more light!" + +"Aye, aye, sir," called out Shaw, but he did not move, as if +dazed by the vehemence of his commander. + +"That's what we want," muttered Carter under his breath. +"Imposter! What do you call yourself?" he said half aloud to +Shaw. + +The ruddy glare of the flares disclosed Lingard from head to +foot, standing at the break of the poop. His head was bare, his +face, crudely lighted, had a fierce and changing expression in +the sway of flames. + +"What can be his game?" thought Carter, impressed by the powerful +and wild aspect of that figure. "He's changed somehow since I saw +him first," he reflected. It struck him the change was serious, +not exactly for the worse, perhaps--and yet. . . . Lingard smiled +at him from the poop. + +Carter went up the steps and without pausing informed him of what +had happened. + +"Mrs. Travers told me to go to you at once. She's very upset as +you may guess," he drawled, looking Lingard hard in the face. +Lingard knitted his eyebrows. "The hands, too, are scared," +Carter went on. "They fancy the savages, or whatever they may be +who stole the owner, are going to board the yacht every minute. I +don't think so myself but--" + +"Quite right--most unlikely," muttered Lingard. + +"Aye, I daresay you know all about it," continued Carter, coolly, +"the men are startled and no mistake, but I can't blame them very +much. There isn't enough even of carving knives aboard to go +round. One old signal gun! A poor show for better men than they." + +"There's no mistake I suppose about this affair?" asked Lingard. + +"Well, unless the gentlemen are having a lark with us at hide and +seek. The man says he waited ten minutes at the point, then +pulled slowly along the bank looking out, expecting to see them +walking back. He made the trunk of a tree apparently stranded on +the sand and as he was sculling past he says a man jumped up from +behind that log, flung a stick at him and went off running. He +backed water at once and began to shout, 'Are you there, sir?' No +one answered. He could hear the bushes rustle and some strange +noises like whisperings. It was very dark. After calling out +several times, and waiting on his oars, he got frightened and +pulled back to the yacht. That is clear enough. The only doubt in +my mind is if they are alive or not. I didn't let on to Mrs. +Travers. That's a kind of thing you keep to yourself, of course." + +"I don't think they are dead," said Lingard, slowly, and as if +thinking of something else. + +"Oh! If you say so it's all right," said Carter with +deliberation. + +"What?" asked Lingard, absently; "fling a stick, did they? Fling +a spear!" + +"That's it!" assented Carter, "but I didn't say anything. I only +wondered if the same kind of stick hadn't been flung at the +owner, that's all. But I suppose you know your business best, +Captain." + +Lingard, grasping his whole beard, reflected profoundly, erect +and with bowed head in the glare of the flares. + +"I suppose you think it's my doing?" he asked, sharply, without +looking up. + +Carter surveyed him with a candidly curious gaze. "Well, Captain, +Mrs. Travers did let on a bit to me about our chief-officer's +boat. You've stopped it, haven't you? How she got to know God +only knows. She was sorry she spoke, too, but it wasn't so much +of news to me as she thought. I can put two and two together, +sometimes. Those rockets, last night, eh? I wished I had bitten +my tongue out before I told you about our first gig. But I was +taken unawares. Wasn't I? I put it to you: wasn't I? And so I +told her when she asked me what passed between you and me on +board this brig, not twenty-four hours ago. Things look different +now, all of a sudden. Enough to scare a woman, but she is the +best man of them all on board. The others are fairly off the +chump because it's a bit dark and something has happened they +ain't used to. But she has something on her mind. I can't make +her out!" He paused, wriggled his shoulders slightly--"No more +than I can make you out," he added. + +"That's your trouble, is it?" said Lingard, slowly. + +"Aye, Captain. Is it all clear to you? Stopping boats, kidnapping +gentlemen. That's fun in a way, only--I am a youngster to +you--but is it all clear to you? Old Robinson wasn't particular, +you know, and he--" + +"Clearer than daylight," cried Lingard, hotly. "I can't give +up--" + +He checked himself. Carter waited. The flare bearers stood rigid, +turning their faces away from the flame, and in the play of +gleams at its foot the mast near by, like a lofty column, +ascended in the great darkness. A lot of ropes ran up slanting +into a dark void and were lost to sight, but high aloft a brace +block gleamed white, the end of a yard-arm could be seen +suspended in the air and as if glowing with its own light. The +sky had clouded over the brig without a breath of wind. + +"Give up," repeated Carter with an uneasy shuffle of feet. + +"Nobody," finished Lingard. "I can't. It's as clear as daylight. +I can't! No! Nothing!" + +He stared straight out afar, and after looking at him Carter felt +moved by a bit of youthful intuition to murmur, "That's bad," in +a tone that almost in spite of himself hinted at the dawning of a +befogged compassion. + +He had a sense of confusion within him, the sense of mystery +without. He had never experienced anything like it all the time +when serving with old Robinson in the Ly-e-moon. And yet he had +seen and taken part in some queer doings that were not clear to +him at the time. They were secret but they suggested something +comprehensible. This affair did not. It had somehow a subtlety +that affected him. He was uneasy as if there had been a breath of +magic on events and men giving to this complication of a yachting +voyage a significance impossible to perceive, but felt in the +words, in the gestures, in the events, which made them all +strangely, obscurely startling. + +He was not one who could keep track of his sensations, and +besides he had not the leisure. He had to answer Lingard's +questions about the people of the yacht. No, he couldn't say Mrs. +Travers was what you may call frightened. She seemed to have +something in her mind. Oh, yes! The chaps were in a funk. Would +they fight? Anybody would fight when driven to it, funk or no +funk. That was his experience. Naturally one liked to have +something better than a handspike to do it with. Still-- In the +pause Carter seemed to weigh with composure the chances of men +with handspikes. + +"What do you want to fight us for?" he asked, suddenly. + +Lingard started. + +"I don't," he said; "I wouldn't be asking you." + +"There's no saying what you would do, Captain," replied Carter; +"it isn't twenty-four hours since you wanted to shoot me." + +"I only said I would, rather than let you go raising trouble for +me," explained Lingard. + +"One night isn't like another," mumbled Carter, "but how am I to +know? It seems to me you are making trouble for yourself as fast +as you can." + +"Well, supposing I am," said Lingard with sudden gloominess. +"Would your men fight if I armed them properly?" + +"What--for you or for themselves?" asked Carter. + +"For the woman," burst out Lingard. "You forget there's a woman +on board. I don't care THAT for their carcases." + +Carter pondered conscientiously. + +"Not to-night," he said at last. "There's one or two good men +amongst them, but the rest are struck all of a heap. Not +to-night. Give them time to get steady a bit if you want them to +fight." + +He gave facts and opinions with a mixture of loyalty and +mistrust. His own state puzzled him exceedingly. He couldn't make +out anything, he did not know what to believe and yet he had an +impulsive desire, an inspired desire to help the man. At times it +appeared a necessity --at others policy; between whiles a great +folly, which perhaps did not matter because he suspected himself +of being helpless anyway. Then he had moments of anger. In those +moments he would feel in his pocket the butt of a loaded pistol. +He had provided himself with the weapon, when directed by Mrs. +Travers to go on board the brig. + +"If he wants to interfere with me, I'll let drive at him and take +my chance of getting away," he had explained hurriedly. + +He remembered how startled Mrs. Travers looked. Of course, a +woman like that--not used to hear such talk. Therefore it was no +use listening to her, except for good manners' sake. Once bit +twice shy. He had no mind to be kidnapped, not he, nor bullied +either. + +"I can't let him nab me, too. You will want me now, Mrs. +Travers," he had said; "and I promise you not to fire off the old +thing unless he jolly well forces me to." + +He was youthfully wise in his resolution not to give way to her +entreaties, though her extraordinary agitation did stagger him +for a moment. When the boat was already on its way to the brig, +he remembered her calling out after him: + +"You must not! You don't understand." + +Her voice coming faintly in the darkness moved him, it resembled +so much a cry of distress. + +"Give way, boys, give way," he urged his men. + +He was wise, resolute, and he was also youthful enough to almost +wish it should "come to it." And with foresight he even +instructed the boat's crew to keep the gig just abaft the main +rigging of the brig. + +"When you see me drop into her all of a sudden, shove off and +pull for dear life." + +Somehow just then he was not so anxious for a shot, but he held +on with a determined mental grasp to his fine resolution, lest it +should slip away from him and perish in a sea of doubts. + +"Hadn't I better get back to the yacht?" he asked, gently. + +Getting no answer he went on with deliberation: + +"Mrs. Travers ordered me to say that no matter how this came +about she is ready to trust you. She is waiting for some kind of +answer, I suppose." + +"Ready to trust me," repeated Lingard. His eyes lit up fiercely. + +Every sway of flares tossed slightly to and fro the massy shadows +of the main deck, where here and there the figure of a man could +be seen standing very still with a dusky face and glittering +eyeballs. + +Carter stole his hand warily into his breast pocket: + +"Well, Captain," he said. He was not going to be bullied, let the +owner's wife trust whom she liked. + +"Have you got anything in writing for me there?" asked Lingard, +advancing a pace, exultingly. + +Carter, alert, stepped back to keep his distance. Shaw stared +from the side; his rubicund cheeks quivered, his round eyes +seemed starting out of his head, and his mouth was open as though +he had been ready to choke with pent-up curiosity, amazement, and +indignation. + +"No! Not in writing," said Carter, steadily and low. + +Lingard had the air of being awakened by a shout. A heavy and +darkening frown seemed to fall out of the night upon his forehead +and swiftly passed into the night again, and when it departed it +left him so calm, his glance so lucid, his mien so composed that +it was difficult to believe the man's heart had undergone within +the last second the trial of humiliation and of danger. He smiled +sadly: + +"Well, young man," he asked with a kind of good-humoured +resignation, "what is it you have there? A knife or a pistol?" + +"A pistol," said Carter. "Are you surprised, Captain?" He spoke +with heat because a sense of regret was stealing slowly within +him, as stealthily, as irresistibly as the flowing tide. "Who +began these tricks?" He withdrew his hand, empty, and raised his +voice. "You are up to something I can't make out. You--you are +not straight." + +The flares held on high streamed right up without swaying, and in +that instant of profound calm the shadows on the brig's deck +became as still as the men. + +"You think not?" said Lingard, thoughtfully. + +Carter nodded. He resented the turn of the incident and the +growing impulse to surrender to that man. + +"Mrs. Travers trusts me though," went on Lingard with gentle +triumph as if advancing an unanswerable argument. + +"So she says," grunted Carter; "I warned her. She's a baby. +They're all as innocent as babies there. And you know it. And I +know it. I've heard of your kind. You would dump the lot of us +overboard if it served your turn. That's what I think." + +"And that's all." + +Carter nodded slightly and looked away. There was a silence. +Lingard's eyes travelled over the brig. The lighted part of the +vessel appeared in bright and wavering detail walled and canopied +by the night. He felt a light breath on his face. The air was +stirring, but the Shallows, silent and lost in the darkness, gave +no sound of life. + +This stillness oppressed Lingard. The world of his endeavours and +his hopes seemed dead, seemed gone. His desire existed homeless +in the obscurity that had devoured his corner of the sea, this +stretch of the coast, his certitude of success. And here in the +midst of what was the domain of his adventurous soul there was a +lost youngster ready to shoot him on suspicion of some +extravagant treachery. Came ready to shoot! That's good, too! He +was too weary to laugh--and perhaps too sad. Also the danger of +the pistol-shot, which he believed real--the young are +rash--irritated him. The night and the spot were full of +contradictions. It was impossible to say who in this shadowy +warfare was to be an enemy, and who were the allies. So close +were the contacts issuing from this complication of a yachting +voyage, that he seemed to have them all within his breast. + +"Shoot me! He is quite up to that trick--damn him. Yet I would +trust him sooner than any man in that yacht." + +Such were his thoughts while he looked at Carter, who was biting +his lips, in the vexation of the long silence. When they spoke +again to each other they talked soberly, with a sense of relief, +as if they had come into cool air from an overheated room and +when Carter, dismissed, went into his boat, he had practically +agreed to the line of action traced by Lingard for the crew of +the yacht. He had agreed as if in implicit confidence. It was one +of the absurdities of the situation which had to be accepted and +could never be understood. + +"Do I talk straight now?" had asked Lingard. + +"It seems straight enough," assented Carter with an air of +reserve; "I will work with you so far anyhow." + +"Mrs. Travers trusts me," remarked Lingard again. + +"By the Lord Harry!" cried Carter, giving way suddenly to some +latent conviction. "I was warning her against you. Say, Captain, +you are a devil of a man. How did you manage it?" + +"I trusted her," said Lingard. + +"Did you?" cried the amazed Carter. "When? How? Where--" + +"You know too much already," retorted Lingard, quietly. "Waste no +time. I will be after you." + +Carter whistled low. + +"There's a pair of you I can't make out," he called back, +hurrying over the side. + +Shaw took this opportunity to approach. Beginning with +hesitation: "A word with you, sir," the mate went on to say he +was a respectable man. He delivered himself in a ringing, +unsteady voice. He was married, he had children, he abhorred +illegality. The light played about his obese figure, he had flung +his mushroom hat on the deck, he was not afraid to speak the +truth. The grey moustache stood out aggressively, his glances +were uneasy; he pressed his hands to his stomach convulsively, +opened his thick, short arms wide, wished it to be understood he +had been chief-officer of home ships, with a spotless character +and he hoped "quite up to his work." He was a peaceable man, none +more; disposed to stretch a point when it "came to a difference +with niggers of some kind--they had to be taught manners and +reason" and he was not averse at a pinch to--but here were white +people--gentlemen, ladies, not to speak of the crew. He had never +spoken to a superior like this before, and this was prudence, his +conviction, a point of view, a point of principle, a conscious +superiority and a burst of resentment hoarded through years +against all the successive and unsatisfactory captains of his +existence. There never had been such an opportunity to show he +could not be put upon. He had one of them on a string and he was +going to lead him a dance. There was courage, too, in it, since +he believed himself fallen unawares into the clutches of a +particularly desperate man and beyond the reach of law. + +A certain small amount of calculation entered the audacity of his +remonstrance. Perhaps--it flashed upon him--the yacht's gentry +will hear I stood up for them. This could conceivably be of +advantage to a man who wanted a lift in the world. "Owner of a +yacht--badly scared--a gentleman--money nothing to him." +Thereupon Shaw declared with heat that he couldn't be an +accessory either after or before the fact. Those that never went +home--who had nothing to go to perhaps--he interjected, +hurriedly, could do as they liked. He couldn't. He had a wife, a +family, a little house--paid for--with difficulty. He followed +the sea respectably out and home, all regular, not vagabonding +here and there, chumming with the first nigger that came along +and laying traps for his betters. + +One of the two flare bearers sighed at his elbow, and shifted his +weight to the other foot. + +These two had been keeping so perfectly still that the movement +was as startling as if a statue had changed its pose. After +looking at the offender with cold malevolence, Shaw went on to +speak of law-courts, of trials, and of the liberty of the +subject; then he pointed out the certitude and the inconvenience +of being found out, affecting for the moment the +dispassionateness of wisdom. + +"There will be fifteen years in gaol at the end of this job for +everybody," said Shaw, "and I have a boy that don't know his +father yet. Fine things for him to learn when he grows up. The +innocent are dead certain here to catch it along with you. The +missus will break her heart unless she starves first. Home sold +up." + +He saw a mysterious iniquity in a dangerous relation to himself +and began to lose his head. What he really wanted was to have his +existence left intact, for his own cherishing and pride. It was a +moral aspiration, but in his alarm the native grossness of his +nature came clattering out like a devil out of a trap. He would +blow the gaff, split, give away the whole show, he would back up +honest people, kiss the book, say what he thought, let all the +world know . . . and when he paused to draw breath, all around +him was silent and still. Before the impetus of that respectable +passion his words were scattered like chaff driven by a gale and +rushed headlong into the night of the Shallows. And in the great +obscurity, imperturbable, it heard him say he "washed his hands +of everything." + +"And the brig?" asked Lingard, suddenly. + +Shaw was checked. For a second the seaman in him instinctively +admitted the claim of the ship. + +"The brig. The brig. She's right enough," he mumbled. He had +nothing to say against the brig--not he. She wasn't like the big +ships he was used to, but of her kind the best craft he ever. . . +. And with a brusque return upon himself, he protested that he +had been decoyed on board under false pretences. It was as bad as +being shanghaied when in liquor. It was--upon his soul. And into +a craft next thing to a pirate! That was the name for it or his +own name was not Shaw. He said this glaring owlishly. Lingard, +perfectly still and mute, bore the blows without a sign. + +The silly fuss of that man seared his very soul. There was no end +to this plague of fools coming to him from the forgotten ends of +the earth. A fellow like that could not be told. No one could be +told. Blind they came and blind they would go out. He admitted +reluctantly, but without doubt, that as if pushed by a force from +outside he would have to try and save two of them. To this end he +foresaw the probable need of leaving his brig for a time. He +would have to leave her with that man. The mate. He had engaged +him himself--to make his insurance valid--to be able sometimes to +speak--to have near him. Who would have believed such a fool-man +could exist on the face of the sea! Who? Leave the brig with him. +The brig! + +Ever since sunset, the breeze kept off by the heat of the day had +been trying to re-establish in the darkness its sway over the +Shoals. Its approaches had been heard in the night, its patient +murmurs, its foiled sighs; but now a surprisingly heavy puff came +in a free rush as if, far away there to the northward, the last +defence of the calm had been victoriously carried. The flames +borne down streamed bluishly, horizontal and noisy at the end of +tall sticks, like fluttering pennants; and behold, the shadows on +the deck went mad and jostled each other as if trying to escape +from a doomed craft, the darkness, held up dome-like by the +brilliant glare, seemed to tumble headlong upon the brig in an +overwhelming downfall, the men stood swaying as if ready to fall +under the ruins of a black and noiseless disaster. The blurred +outlines of the brig, the masts, the rigging, seemed to shudder +in the terror of coming extinction--and then the darkness leaped +upward again, the shadows returned to their places, the men were +seen distinct, swarthy, with calm faces, with glittering +eyeballs. The destruction in the breath had passed, was gone. + +A discord of three voices raised together in a drawling wail +trailed on the sudden immobility of the air. + +"Brig ahoy! Give us a rope!" + +The first boat-load from the yacht emerged floating slowly into +the pool of purple light wavering round the brig on the black +water. Two men squeezed in the bows pulled uncomfortably; in the +middle, on a heap of seamen's canvas bags, another sat, insecure, +propped with both arms, stiff-legged, angularly helpless. The +light from the poop brought everything out in lurid detail, and +the boat floating slowly toward the brig had a suspicious and +pitiful aspect. The shabby load lumbering her looked somehow as +if it had been stolen by those men who resembled castaways. In +the sternsheets Carter, standing up, steered with his leg. He had +a smile of youthful sarcasm. + +"Here they are!" he cried to Lingard. "You've got your own way, +Captain. I thought I had better come myself with the first +precious lot--" + +"Pull around the stern. The brig's on the swing," interrupted +Lingard. + +"Aye, aye! We'll try not to smash the brig. We would be lost +indeed if--fend off there, John; fend off, old reliable, if you +care a pin for your salty hide. I like the old chap," he said, +when he stood by Lingard's side looking down at the boat which +was being rapidly cleared by whites and Malays working shoulder +to shoulder in silence. "I like him. He don't belong to that +yachting lot either. They picked him up on the road somewhere. +Look at the old dog--carved out of a ship's timber--as talkative +as a fish--grim as a gutted wreck. That's the man for me. All the +others there are married, or going to be, or ought to be, or +sorry they ain't. Every man jack of them has a petticoat in tow-- +dash me! Never heard in all my travels such a jabber about wives +and kids. Hurry up with your dunnage--below there! Aye! I had no +difficulty in getting them to clear out from the yacht. They +never saw a pair of gents stolen before--you understand. It upset +all their little notions of what a stranding means, hereabouts. +Not that mine aren't mixed a bit, too--and yet I've seen a thing +or two." + +His excitement was revealed in this boyish impulse to talk. + +"Look," he said, pointing at the growing pile of bags and bedding +on the brig's quarter-deck. "Look. Don't they mean to sleep +soft--and dream of home--maybe. Home. Think of that, Captain. +These chaps can't get clear away from it. It isn't like you and +me--" + +Lingard made a movement. + +"I ran away myself when so high. My old man's a Trinity pilot. +That's a job worth staying at home for. Mother writes sometimes, +but they can't miss me much. There's fourteen of us +altogether--eight at home yet. No fear of the old country ever +getting undermanned--let die who must. Only let it be a fair +game, Captain. Let's have a fair show." + +Lingard assured him briefly he should have it. That was the very +reason he wanted the yacht's crew in the brig, he added. Then +quiet and grave he inquired whether that pistol was still in +Carter's pocket. + +"Never mind that," said the young man, hurriedly. "Remember who +began. To be shot at wouldn't rile me so much--it's being +threatened, don't you see, that was heavy on my chest. Last night +is very far off though--and I will be hanged if I know what I +meant exactly when I took the old thing from its nail. There. +More I can't say till all's settled one way or another. Will that +do?" + +Flushing brick red, he suspended his judgment and stayed his hand +with the generosity of youth. + +. . . . . . . + +Apparently it suited Lingard to be reprieved in that form. He +bowed his head slowly. It would do. To leave his life to that +youngster's ignorance seemed to redress the balance of his mind +against a lot of secret intentions. It was distasteful and bitter +as an expiation should be. He also held a life in his hand; a +life, and many deaths besides, but these were like one single +feather in the scales of his conscience. That he should feel so +was unavoidable because his strength would at no price permit +itself to be wasted. It would not be--and there was an end of it. +All he could do was to throw in another risk into the sea of +risks. Thus was he enabled to recognize that a drop of water in +the ocean makes a great difference. His very desire, unconquered, +but exiled, had left the place where he could constantly hear its +voice. He saw it, he saw himself, the past, the future, he saw it +all, shifting and indistinct like those shapes the strained eye +of a wanderer outlines in darker strokes upon the face of the +night. + + + +X + +When Lingard went to his boat to follow Carter, who had gone back +to the yacht, Wasub, mast and sail on shoulder, preceded him down +the ladder. The old man leaped in smartly and busied himself in +getting the dinghy ready for his commander. + +In that little boat Lingard was accustomed to traverse the +Shallows alone. She had a short mast and a lug-sail, carried two +easily, floated in a few inches of water. In her he was +independent of a crew, and, if the wind failed, could make his +way with a pair of sculls taking short cuts over shoal places. +There were so many islets and sandbanks that in case of sudden +bad weather there was always a lee to be found, and when he +wished to land he could pull her up a beach, striding ahead, +painter in hand, like a giant child dragging a toy boat. When the +brig was anchored within the Shallows it was in her that he +visited the lagoon. Once, when caught by a sudden freshening of +the sea-breeze, he had waded up a shelving bank carrying her on +his head and for two days they had rested together on the sand, +while around them the shallow waters raged lividly, and across +three miles of foam the brig would time after time dissolve in +the mist and re-appear distinct, nodding her tall spars that +seemed to touch a weeping sky of lamentable greyness. + +Whenever he came into the lagoon tugging with bare arms, +Jorgenson, who would be watching the entrance of the creek ever +since a muffled detonation of a gun to seaward had warned him of +the brig's arrival on the Shore of Refuge, would mutter to +himself--"Here's Tom coming in his nutshell." And indeed she was +in shape somewhat like half a nutshell and also in the colour of +her dark varnished planks. The man's shoulders and head rose high +above her gunwales; loaded with Lingard's heavy frame she would +climb sturdily the steep ridges, slide squatting into the hollows +of the sea, or, now and then, take a sedate leap over a short +wave. Her behaviour had a stout trustworthiness about it, and she +reminded one of a surefooted mountain-pony carrying over +difficult ground a rider much bigger than himself. + +Wasub wiped the thwarts, ranged the mast and sail along the side, +shipped the rowlocks. Lingard looked down at his old servant's +spare shoulders upon which the light from above fell unsteady but +vivid. Wasub worked for the comfort of his commander and his +singleminded absorption in that task flashed upon Lingard the +consolation of an act of friendliness. The elderly Malay at last +lifted his head with a deferential murmur; his wrinkled old face +with half a dozen wiry hairs pendulous at each corner of the dark +lips expressed a kind of weary satisfaction, and the slightly +oblique worn eyes stole a discreet upward glance containing a +hint of some remote meaning. Lingard found himself compelled by +the justice of that obscure claim to murmur as he stepped into +the boat: + +"These are times of danger." + +He sat down and took up the sculls. Wasub held on to the gunwale +as to a last hope of a further confidence. He had served in the +brig five years. Lingard remembered that very well. This aged +figure had been intimately associated with the brig's life and +with his own, appearing silently ready for every incident and +emergency in an unquestioning expectation of orders; symbolic of +blind trust in his strength, of an unlimited obedience to his +will. Was it unlimited? + +"We shall require courage and fidelity," added Lingard, in a +tentative tone. + +"There are those who know me," snapped the old man, readily, as +if the words had been waiting for a long time. "Observe, Tuan. I +have filled with fresh water the little breaker in the bows." + +"I know you, too," said Lingard. + +"And the wind--and the sea," ejaculated the serang, jerkily. +"These also are faithful to the strong. By Allah! I who am a +pilgrim and have listened to words of wisdom in many places, I +tell you, Tuan, there is strength in the knowledge of what is +hidden in things without life, as well as in the living men. +Will Tuan be gone long?" + +"I come back in a short time--together with the rest of the +whites from over there. This is the beginning of many stratagems. +Wasub! Daman, the son of a dog, has suddenly made prisoners two +of my own people. My face is made black." + +"Tse! Tse! What ferocity is that! One should not offer shame to a +friend or to a friend's brother lest revenge come sweeping like a +flood. Yet can an Illanun chief be other than tyrannical? My old +eyes have seen much but they never saw a tiger change its +stripes. Ya-wa! The tiger can not. This is the wisdom of us +ignorant Malay men. The wisdom of white Tuans is great. They +think that by the power of many speeches the tiger may--" He +broke off and in a crisp, busy tone said: "The rudder dwells +safely under the aftermost seat should Tuan be pleased to sail +the boat. This breeze will not die away before sunrise." Again +his voice changed as if two different souls had been flitting in +and out of his body. "No, no, kill the tiger and then the stripes +may be counted without fear--one by one, thus." + +He pointed a frail brown finger and, abruptly, made a mirthless +dry sound as if a rattle had been sprung in his throat. + +"The wretches are many," said Lingard. + +"Nay, Tuan. They follow their great men even as we in the brig +follow you. That is right." + +Lingard reflected for a moment. + +"My men will follow me then," he said. + +"They are poor calashes without sense," commented Wasub with +pitying superiority. "Some with no more comprehension than men of +the bush freshly caught. There is Sali, the foolish son of my +sister and by your great favour appointed to mind the tiller of +this ship. His stupidity is extreme, but his eyes are +good--nearly as good as mine that by praying and much exercise +can see far into the night." + +Lingard laughed low and then looked earnestly at the serang. +Above their heads a man shook a flare over the side and a thin +shower of sparks floated downward and expired before touching the +water. + +"So you can see in the night, O serang! Well, then, look and +speak. Speak! Fight--or no fight? Weapons or words? Which folly? +Well, what do you see?" + +"A darkness, a darkness," whispered Wasub at last in a frightened +tone. "There are nights--" He shook his head and muttered. "Look. +The tide has turned. Ya, Tuan. The tide has turned." + +Lingard looked downward where the water could be seen, gliding +past the ship's side, moving smoothly, streaked with lines of +froth, across the illumined circle thrown round the brig by the +lights on her poop. Air bubbles sparkled, lines of darkness, +ripples of glitter appeared, glided, went astern without a +splash, without a trickle, without a plaint, without a break. The +unchecked gentleness of the flow captured the eye by a subtle +spell, fastened insidiously upon the mind a disturbing sense of +the irretrievable. The ebbing of the sea athwart the lonely sheen +of flames resembled the eternal ebb-tide of time; and when at +last Lingard looked up, the knowledge of that noiseless passage +of the waters produced on his mind a bewildering effect. For a +moment the speck of light lost in vast obscurity the brig, the +boat, the hidden coast, the Shallows, the very walls and roof of +darkness--the seen and the unseen alike seemed to be gliding +smoothly onward through the enormous gloom of space. Then, with a +great mental effort, he brought everything to a sudden +standstill; and only the froth and bubbles went on streaming past +ceaselessly, unchecked by the power of his will. + +"The tide has turned--you say, serang? Has it--? Well, perhaps it +has, perhaps it has," he finished, muttering to himself. + +"Truly it has. Can not Tuan see it run under his own eyes?" said +Wasub with an alarmed earnestness. "Look. Now it is in my mind +that a prau coming from amongst the southern islands, if steered +cunningly in the free set of the current, would approach the bows +of this, our brig, drifting silently as a shape without a +substance." + +"And board suddenly--is that it?" said Lingard. + +"Daman is crafty and the Illanuns are very bloodthirsty. Night is +nothing to them. They are certainly valorous. Are they not born +in the midst of fighting and are they not inspired by the evil of +their hearts even before they can speak? And their chiefs would +be leading them while you, Tuan, are going from us even now--" + +"You don't want me to go?" asked Lingard. + +For a time Wasub listened attentively to the profound silence. + +"Can we fight without a leader?" he began again. "It is the +belief in victory that gives courage. And what would poor +calashes do, sons of peasants and fishermen, freshly +caught--without knowledge? They believe in your strength--and in +your power--or else--Will those whites that came so suddenly +avenge you? They are here like fish within the stakes. Ya-wa! Who +will bring the news and who will come to find the truth and +perchance to carry off your body? You go alone, Tuan!" + +"There must be no fighting. It would be a calamity," insisted +Lingard. "There is blood that must not be spilt." + +"Hear, Tuan!" exclaimed Wasub with heat. "The waters are running +out now." He punctuated his speech by slight jerks at the dinghy. +"The waters go and at the appointed time they shall return. And +if between their going and coming the blood of all the men in the +world were poured into it, the sea would not rise higher at the +full by the breadth of my finger nail." + +"But the world would not be the same. You do not see that, +serang. Give the boat a good shove." + +"Directly," said the old Malay and his face became impassive. +"Tuan knows when it is best to go, and death sometimes retreats +before a firm tread like a startled snake. Tuan should take a +follower with him, not a silly youth, but one who has lived--who +has a steady heart--who would walk close behind watchfully --and +quietly. Yes. Quietly and with quick eyes--like mine-- perhaps +with a weapon--I know how to strike." + +Lingard looked at the wrinkled visage very near his own and into +the peering old eyes. They shone strangely. A tense eagerness was +expressed in the squatting figure leaning out toward him. On the +other side, within reach of his arm, the night stood like a wall +-discouraging--opaque--impenetrable. No help would avail. The +darkness he had to combat was too impalpable to be cleft by a +blow--too dense to be pierced by the eye; yet as if by some +enchantment in the words that made this vain offer of fidelity, +it became less overpowering to his sight, less crushing to his +thought. He had a moment of pride which soothed his heart for the +space of two beats. His unreasonable and misjudged heart, +shrinking before the menace of failure, expanded freely with a +sense of generous gratitude. In the threatening dimness of his +emotions this man's offer made a point of clearness, the glimmer +of a torch held aloft in the night. It was priceless, no doubt, +but ineffectual; too small, too far, too solitary. It did not +dispel the mysterious obscurity that had descended upon his +fortunes so that his eyes could no longer see the work of his +hands. The sadness of defeat pervaded the world. + +"And what could you do, O Wasub?" he said. + +"I could always call out--'Take care, Tuan.'" + +"And then for these charm-words of mine. Hey? Turn danger aside? +What? But perchance you would die all the same. Treachery is a +strong magic, too--as you said." + +"Yes, indeed! The order might come to your servant. But I--Wasub- +-the son of a free man, a follower of Rajahs, a fugitive, a +slave, a pilgrim--diver for pearls, serang of white men's ships, +I have had too many masters. Too many. You are the last." After a +silence he said in an almost indifferent voice: "If you go, Tuan, +let us go together." + +For a time Lingard made no sound. + +"No use," he said at last. "No use, serang. One life is enough to +pay for a man's folly--and you have a household." + +"I have two--Tuan; but it is a long time since I sat on the +ladder of a house to talk at ease with neighbours. Yes. Two +households; one in--" Lingard smiled faintly. "Tuan, let me +follow you." + +"No. You have said it, serang--I am alone. That is true, and +alone I shall go on this very night. But first I must bring all +the white people here. Push." + +"Ready, Tuan? Look out!" + +Wasub's body swung over the sea with extended arms. Lingard +caught up the sculls, and as the dinghy darted away from the +brig's side he had a complete view of the lighted poop--Shaw +leaning massively over the taffrail in sulky dejection, the flare +bearers erect and rigid, the heads along the rail, the eyes +staring after him above the bulwarks. The fore-end of the brig +was wrapped in a lurid and sombre mistiness; the sullen mingling +of darkness and of light; her masts pointing straight up could be +tracked by torn gleams and vanished above as if the trucks had +been tall enough to pierce the heavy mass of vapours motionless +overhead. She was beautifully precious. His loving eyes saw her +floating at rest in a wavering halo, between an invisible sky and +an invisible sea, like a miraculous craft suspended in the air. +He turned his head away as if the sight had been too much for him +at the moment of separation, and, as soon as his little boat had +passed beyond the limit of the light thrown upon the water, he +perceived very low in the black void of the west the stern +lantern of the yacht shining feebly like a star about to set, +unattainable, infinitely remote--belonging to another universe. + + + +PART IV. THE GIFT OF THE SHALLOWS + +I + +Lingard brought Mrs. Travers away from the yacht, going alone +with her in the little boat. During the bustle of the embarkment, +and till the last of the crew had left the schooner, he had +remained towering and silent by her side. It was only when the +murmuring and uneasy voices of the sailors going away in the +boats had been completely lost in the distance that his voice was +heard, grave in the silence, pronouncing the words --"Follow me." +She followed him; their footsteps rang hollow and loud on the +empty deck. At the bottom of the steps he turned round and said +very low: + +"Take care." + +He got into the boat and held on. It seemed to him that she was +intimidated by the darkness. She felt her arm gripped +firmly--"I've got you," he said. She stepped in, headlong, +trusting herself blindly to his grip, and sank on the stern seat +catching her breath a little. She heard a slight splash, and the +indistinct side of the deserted yacht melted suddenly into the +body of the night. + +Rowing, he faced her, a hooded and cloaked shape, and above her +head he had before his eyes the gleam of the stern lantern +expiring slowly on the abandoned vessel. When it went out without +a warning flicker he could see nothing of the stranded yacht's +outline. She had vanished utterly like a dream; and the +occurrences of the last twenty-four hours seemed also to be a +part of a vanished dream. The hooded and cloaked figure was part +of it, too. It spoke not; it moved not; it would vanish +presently. Lingard tried to remember Mrs. Travers' features, even +as she sat within two feet of him in the boat. He seemed to have +taken from that vanished schooner not a woman but a memory--the +tormenting recollection of a human being he would see no more. + +At every stroke of the short sculls Mrs. Travers felt the boat +leap forward with her. Lingard, to keep his direction, had to +look over his shoulder frequently--"You will be safe in the +brig," he said. She was silent. A dream! A dream! He lay back +vigorously; the water slapped loudly against the blunt bows. The +ruddy glow thrown afar by the flares was reflected deep within +the hood. The dream had a pale visage, the memory had living +eyes. + +"I had to come for you myself," he said. + +"I expected it of you." These were the first words he had heard +her say since they had met for the third time. + +"And I swore--before you, too--that I would never put my foot on +board your craft." + +"It was good of you to--" she began. + +"I forgot somehow," he said, simply. + +"I expected it of you," she repeated. He gave three quick strokes +before he asked very gently: + +"What more do you expect?" + +"Everything," she said. He was rounding then the stern of the +brig and had to look away. Then he turned to her. + +"And you trust me to--" he exclaimed. + +"I would like to trust you," she interrupted, "because--" + +Above them a startled voice cried in Malay, "Captain coming." The +strange sound silenced her. Lingard laid in his sculls and she +saw herself gliding under the high side of the brig. A dark, +staring face appeared very near her eyes, black fingers caught +the gunwale of the boat. She stood up swaying. "Take care," said +Lingard again, but this time, in the light, did not offer to help +her. She went up alone and he followed her over the rail. + +The quarter-deck was thronged by men of two races. Lingard and +Mrs. Travers crossed it rapidly between the groups that moved out +of the way on their passage. Lingard threw open the cabin door +for her, but remained on deck to inquire about his boats. They +had returned while he was on board the yacht, and the two men in +charge of them came aft to make their reports. The boat sent +north had seen nothing. The boat which had been directed to +explore the banks and islets to the south had actually been in +sight of Daman's praus. The man in charge reported that several +fires were burning on the shore, the crews of the two praus being +encamped on a sandbank. Cooking was going on. They had been near +enough to hear the voices. There was a man keeping watch on the +ridge; they knew this because they heard him shouting to the +people below, by the fires. Lingard wanted to know how they had +managed to remain unseen. "The night was our hiding place," +answered the man in his deep growling voice. He knew nothing of +any white men being in Daman's camp. Why should there be? Rajah +Hassim and the Lady, his sister, appeared unexpectedly near his +boat in their canoe. Rajah Hassim had ordered him then in +whispers to go back to the brig at once, and tell Tuan what he +had observed. Rajah Hassim said also that he would return to the +brig with more news very soon. He obeyed because the Rajah was to +him a person of authority, "having the perfect knowledge of +Tuan's mind as we all know."--"Enough," cried Lingard, suddenly. + +The man looked up heavily for a moment, and retreated forward +without another word. Lingard followed him with irritated eyes. A +new power had come into the world, had possessed itself of human +speech, had imparted to it a sinister irony of allusion. To be +told that someone had "a perfect knowledge of his mind" startled +him and made him wince. It made him aware that now he did not +know his mind himself--that it seemed impossible for him ever to +regain that knowledge. And the new power not only had cast its +spell upon the words he had to hear, but also upon the facts that +assailed him, upon the people he saw, upon the thoughts he had to +guide, upon the feelings he had to bear. They remained what they +had ever been--the visible surface of life open in the sun to the +conquering tread of an unfettered will. Yesterday they could have +been discerned clearly, mastered and despised; but now another +power had come into the world, and had cast over them all the +wavering gloom of a dark and inscrutable purpose. + + + +II + +Recovering himself with a slight start Lingard gave the order to +extinguish all the lights in the brig. Now the transfer of the +crew from the yacht had been effected there was every advantage +in the darkness. He gave the order from instinct, it being the +right thing to do in the circumstances. His thoughts were in the +cabin of his brig, where there was a woman waiting. He put his +hand over his eyes, collecting himself as if before a great +mental effort. He could hear about him the excited murmurs of the +white men whom in the morning he had so ardently desired to have +safe in his keeping. He had them there now; but accident, +ill-luck, a cursed folly, had tricked him out of the success of +his plan. He would have to go in and talk to Mrs. Travers. The +idea dismayed him. Of necessity he was not one of those men who +have the mastery of expression. To liberate his soul was for him +a gigantic undertaking, a matter of desperate effort, of doubtful +success. "I must have it out with her," he murmured to himself as +though at the prospect of a struggle. He was uncertain of +himself, of her; he was uncertain of everything and everybody; +but he was very certain he wanted to look at her. + +At the moment he turned to the door of the cabin both flares went +out together and the black vault of the night upheld above the +brig by the fierce flames fell behind him and buried the deck in +sudden darkness. The buzz of strange voices instantly hummed +louder with a startled note. "Hallo!"--"Can't see a mortal +thing"--"Well, what next?"--insisted a voice--"I want to know +what next?" + +Lingard checked himself ready to open the door and waited +absurdly for the answer as though in the hope of some suggestion. +"What's up with you? Think yourself lucky," said somebody.--"It's +all very well--for to-night," began the voice.--"What are you +fashing yourself for?" remonstrated the other, reasonably, "we'll +get home right enough."--"I am not so sure; the second mate he +says--" "Never mind what he says; that 'ere man who has got this +brig will see us through. The owner's wife will talk to him--she +will. Money can do a lot." The two voices came nearer, and spoke +more distinctly, close behind Lingard. "Suppose them blooming +savages set fire to the yacht. What's to prevent them?"--"And +suppose they do. This 'ere brig's good enough to get away in. +Ain't she? Guns and all. We'll get home yet all right. What do +you say, John?" + +"I say nothing and care less," said a third voice, peaceful and +faint. + +"D'you mean to say, John, you would go to the bottom as soon as +you would go home? Come now!"--"To the bottom," repeated the wan +voice, composedly. "Aye! That's where we all are going to, in one +way or another. The way don't matter." + +"Ough! You would give the blues to the funny man of a blooming +circus. What would my missus say if I wasn't to turn up never at +all?"--"She would get another man; there's always plenty of fools +about." A quiet and mirthless chuckle was heard in the pause of +shocked silence. Lingard, with his hand on the door, remained +still. Further off a growl burst out: "I do hate to be chucked in +the dark aboard a strange ship. I wonder where they keep their +fresh water. Can't get any sense out of them silly niggers. We +don't seem to be more account here than a lot of cattle. Likely +as not we'll have to berth on this blooming quarter-deck for God +knows how long." Then again very near Lingard the first voice +said, deadened discreetly-- "There's something curious about this +here brig turning up sudden-like, ain't there? And that skipper +of her--now? What kind of a man is he--anyhow?" + +"Oh, he's one of them skippers going about loose. The brig's his +own, I am thinking. He just goes about in her looking for what he +may pick up honest or dishonest. My brother-in-law has served two +commissions in these seas, and was telling me awful yarns about +what's going on in them God-forsaken parts. Likely he lied, +though. Them man-of-war's men are a holy terror for yarns. Bless +you, what do I care who this skipper is? Let him do his best and +don't trouble your head. You won't see him again in your life +once we get clear." + +"And can he do anything for the owner?" asked the first voice +again.--"Can he! We can do nothing--that's one thing certain. The +owner may be lying clubbed to death this very minute for all we +know. By all accounts these savages here are a crool murdering +lot. Mind you, I am sorry for him as much as anybody."--"Aye, +aye," muttered the other, approvingly. --"He may not have been +ready, poor man," began again the reasonable voice. Lingard heard +a deep sigh.--"If there's anything as can be done for him, the +owner's wife she's got to fix it up with this 'ere skipper. Under +Providence he may serve her turn." + +Lingard flung open the cabin door, entered, and, with a slam, +shut the darkness out. + +"I am, under Providence, to serve your turn," he said after +standing very still for a while, with his eyes upon Mrs. Travers. +The brig's swing-lamp lighted the cabin with an extraordinary +brilliance. Mrs. Travers had thrown back her hood. The radiant +brightness of the little place enfolded her so close, clung to +her with such force that it might have been part of her very +essence. There were no shadows on her face; it was fiercely +lighted, hermetically closed, of impenetrable fairness. + +Lingard looked in unconscious ecstasy at this vision, so amazing +that it seemed to have strayed into his existence from beyond the +limits of the conceivable. It was impossible to guess her +thoughts, to know her feelings, to understand her grief or her +joy. But she knew all that was at the bottom of his heart. He had +told her himself, impelled by a sudden thought, going to her in +darkness, in desperation, in absurd hope, in incredible trust. He +had told her what he had told no one on earth, except perhaps, at +times, himself, but without words--less clearly. He had told her +and she had listened in silence. She had listened leaning over +the rail till at last her breath was on his forehead. He +remembered this and had a moment of soaring pride and of +unutterable dismay. He spoke, with an effort. + +"You've heard what I said just now? Here I am." + +"Do you expect me to say something?" she asked. "Is it necessary? +Is it possible?" + +"No," he answered. "It is said already. I know what you expect +from me. Everything." + +"Everything," she repeated, paused, and added much lower, "It is +the very least." He seemed to lose himself in thought. + +"It is extraordinary," he reflected half aloud, "how I dislike +that man." She leaned forward a little. + +"Remember those two men are innocent," she began. + +"So am I--innocent. So is everybody in the world. Have you ever +met a man or a woman that was not? They've got to take their +chances all the same." + +"I expect you to be generous," she said. + +"To you?" + +"Well--to me. Yes--if you like to me alone." + +"To you alone! And you know everything!" His voice dropped. "You +want your happiness." + +She made an impatient movement and he saw her clench the hand +that was lying on the table. + +"I want my husband back," she said, sharply. + +"Yes. Yes. It's what I was saying. Same thing," he muttered with +strange placidity. She looked at him searchingly. He had a large +simplicity that filled one's vision. She found herself slowly +invaded by this masterful figure. He was not mediocre. Whatever +he might have been he was not mediocre. The glamour of a lawless +life stretched over him like the sky over the sea down on all +sides to an unbroken horizon. Within, he moved very lonely, +dangerous and romantic. There was in him crime, sacrifice, +tenderness, devotion, and the madness of a fixed idea. She +thought with wonder that of all the men in the world he was +indeed the one she knew the best and yet she could not foresee +the speech or the act of the next minute. She said distinctly: + +"You've given me your confidence. Now I want you to give me the +life of these two men. The life of two men whom you do not know, +whom to-morrow you will forget. It can be done. It must be done. +You cannot refuse them to me." She waited. + +"Why can't I refuse?" he whispered, gloomily, without looking up. + +"You ask!" she exclaimed. He made no sign. He seemed at a loss +for words. + +"You ask . . . Ah!" she cried. "Don't you see that I have no +kingdoms to conquer?" + + + +III + +A slight change of expression which passed away almost directly +showed that Lingard heard the passionate cry wrung from her by +the distress of her mind. He made no sign. She perceived clearly +the extreme difficulty of her position. The situation was +dangerous; not so much the facts of it as the feeling of it. At +times it appeared no more actual than a tradition; and she +thought of herself as of some woman in a ballad, who has to beg +for the lives of innocent captives. To save the lives of Mr. +Travers and Mr. d'Alcacer was more than a duty. It was a +necessity, it was an imperative need, it was an irresistible +mission. Yet she had to reflect upon the horrors of a cruel and +obscure death before she could feel for them the pity they +deserved. It was when she looked at Lingard that her heart was +wrung by an extremity of compassion. The others were pitiful, but +he, the victim of his own extravagant impulses, appeared tragic, +fascinating, and culpable. Lingard lifted his head. Whispers were +heard at the door and Hassim followed by Immada entered the +cabin. + +Mrs. Travers looked at Lingard, because of all the faces in the +cabin his was the only one that was intelligible to her. Hassim +began to speak at once, and when he ceased Immada's deep sigh was +heard in the sudden silence. Then Lingard looked at Mrs. Travers +and said: + +"The gentlemen are alive. Rajah Hassim here has seen them less +than two hours ago, and so has the girl. They are alive and +unharmed, so far. And now. . . ." + +He paused. Mrs. Travers, leaning on her elbow, shaded her eyes +under the glint of suspended thunderbolts. + +"You must hate us," she murmured. + +"Hate you," he repeated with, as she fancied, a tinge of disdain +in his tone. "No. I hate myself." + +"Why yourself?" she asked, very low. + +"For not knowing my mind," he answered. "For not knowing my mind. +For not knowing what it is that's got hold of me since--since +this morning. I was angry then. . . . Nothing but very angry. . . +." + +"And now?" she murmured. + +"I am . . . unhappy," he said. After a moment of silence which +gave to Mrs. Travers the time to wonder how it was that this man +had succeeded in penetrating into the very depths of her +compassion, he hit the table such a blow that all the heavy +muskets seemed to jump a little. + +Mrs. Travers heard Hassim pronounce a few words earnestly, and a +moan of distress from Immada. + +"I believed in you before you . . . before you gave me your +confidence," she began. "You could see that. Could you not?" + +He looked at her fixedly. "You are not the first that believed in +me," he said. + +Hassim, lounging with his back against the closed door, kept his +eye on him watchfully and Immada's dark and sorrowful eyes rested +on the face of the white woman. Mrs. Travers felt as though she +were engaged in a contest with them; in a struggle for the +possession of that man's strength and of that man's devotion. +When she looked up at Lingard she saw on his face--which should +have been impassive or exalted, the face of a stern leader or the +face of a pitiless dreamer--an expression of utter forgetfulness. +He seemed to be tasting the delight of some profound and amazing +sensation. And suddenly in the midst of her appeal to his +generosity, in the middle of a phrase, Mrs. Travers faltered, +becoming aware that she was the object of his contemplation. + +"Do not! Do not look at that woman!" cried Immada. "O! +Master--look away. . . ." Hassim threw one arm round the girl's +neck. Her voice sank. "O! Master--look at us." Hassim, drawing +her to himself, covered her lips with his hand. She struggled a +little like a snared bird and submitted, hiding her face on his +shoulder, very quiet, sobbing without noise. + +"What do they say to you?" asked Mrs. Travers with a faint and +pained smile. "What can they say? It is intolerable to think that +their words which have no meaning for me may go straight to your +heart. . . ." + +"Look away," whispered Lingard without making the slightest +movement. + +Mrs. Travers sighed. + +"Yes, it is very hard to think that I who want to touch you +cannot make myself understood as well as they. And yet I speak +the language of your childhood, the language of the man for whom +there is no hope but in your generosity." + +He shook his head. She gazed at him anxiously for a moment. "In +your memories then," she said and was surprised by the expression +of profound sadness that over-spread his attentive face. + +"Do you know what I remember?" he said. "Do you want to know?" +She listened with slightly parted lips. "I will tell you. +Poverty, hard work--and death," he went on, very quietly. "And +now I've told you, and you don't know. That's how it is between +us. You talk to me--I talk to you--and we don't know." + +Her eyelids dropped. + +"What can I find to say?" she went on. "What can I do? I mustn't +give in. Think! Amongst your memories there must be some +face--some voice--some name, if nothing more. I can not believe +that there is nothing but bitterness." + +"There's no bitterness," he murmured. + +"O! Brother, my heart is faint with fear," whispered Immada. +Lingard turned swiftly to that whisper. + +"Then, they are to be saved," exclaimed Mrs. Travers. "Ah, I +knew. . . ." + +"Bear thy fear in patience," said Hassim, rapidly, to his sister. + +"They are to be saved. You have said it," Lingard pronounced +aloud, suddenly. He felt like a swimmer who, in the midst of +superhuman efforts to reach the shore, perceives that the +undertow is taking him to sea. He would go with the mysterious +current; he would go swiftly--and see the end, the fulfilment +both blissful and terrible. + +With this state of exaltation in which he saw himself in some +incomprehensible way always victorious, whatever might befall, +there was mingled a tenacity of purpose. He could not sacrifice +his intention, the intention of years, the intention of his life; +he could no more part with it and exist than he could cut out his +heart and live. The adventurer held fast to his adventure which +made him in his own sight exactly what he was. + +He considered the problem with cool audacity, backed by a belief +in his own power. It was not these two men he had to save; he had +to save himself! And looked upon in this way the situation +appeared familiar. + +Hassim had told him the two white men had been taken by their +captors to Daman's camp. The young Rajah, leaving his sister in +the canoe, had landed on the sand and had crept to the very edge +of light thrown by the fires by which the Illanuns were cooking. +Daman was sitting apart by a larger blaze. Two praus rode in +shallow water near the sandbank; on the ridge, a sentry walked +watching the lights of the brig; the camp was full of quiet +whispers. Hassim returned to his canoe, then he and his sister, +paddling cautiously round the anchored praus, in which women's +voices could be heard, approached the other end of the camp. The +light of the big blaze there fell on the water and the canoe +skirted it without a splash, keeping in the night. Hassim, +landing for the second time, crept again close to the fires. Each +prau had, according to the customs of the Illanun rovers when on +a raiding expedition, a smaller war-boat and these being light +and manageable were hauled up on the sand not far from the big +blaze; they sat high on the shelving shore throwing heavy +shadows. Hassim crept up toward the largest of them and then +standing on tiptoe could look at the camp across the gunwales. +The confused talking of the men was like the buzz of insects in a +forest. A child wailed on board one of the praus and a woman +hailed the shore shrilly. Hassim unsheathed his kris and held it +in his hand. + +Very soon--he said--he saw the two white men walking amongst the +fires. They waved their arms and talked together, stopping from +time to time; they approached Daman; and the short man with the +hair on his face addressed him earnestly and at great length. +Daman sat crosslegged upon a little carpet with an open Koran on +his knees and chanted the versets swaying to and fro with his +eyes shut. + +The Illanun chiefs reclining wrapped in cloaks on the ground +raised themselves on their elbows to look at the whites. When the +short white man finished speaking he gazed down at them for a +while, then stamped his foot. He looked angry because no one +understood him. Then suddenly he looked very sad; he covered his +face with his hands; the tall man put his hand on the short man's +shoulder and whispered into his ear. The dry wood of the fires +crackled, the Illanuns slept, cooked, talked, but with their +weapons at hand. An armed man or two came up to stare at the +prisoners and then returned to their fire. The two whites sank +down in the sand in front of Daman. Their clothes were soiled, +there was sand in their hair. The tall man had lost his hat; the +glass in the eye of the short man glittered very much; his back +was muddy and one sleeve of his coat torn up to the elbow. + +All this Hassim saw and then retreated undetected to that part of +the shore where Immada waited for him, keeping the canoe afloat. +The Illanuns, trusting to the sea, kept very bad watch on their +prisoners, and had he been able to speak with them Hassim thought +an escape could have been effected. But they could not have +understood his signs and still less his words. He consulted with +his sister. Immada murmured sadly; at their feet the ripple broke +with a mournful sound no louder than their voices. + +Hassim's loyalty was unshaken, but now it led him on not in the +bright light of hopes but in the deepened shadow of doubt. He +wanted to obtain information for his friend who was so powerful +and who perhaps would know how to be constant. When followed by +Immada he approached the camp again--this time openly--their +appearance did not excite much surprise. It was well known to the +Chiefs of the Illanuns that the Rajah for whom they were to +fight--if God so willed --was upon the shoals looking out for the +coming of the white man who had much wealth and a store of +weapons and who was his servant. Daman, who alone understood the +exact relation, welcomed them with impenetrable gravity. Hassim +took his seat on the carpet at his right hand. A consultation was +being held half-aloud in short and apparently careless sentences, +with long intervals of silence between. Immada, nestling close to +her brother, leaned one arm on his shoulder and listened with +serious attention and with outward calm as became a princess of +Wajo accustomed to consort with warriors and statesmen in moments +of danger and in the hours of deliberation. Her heart was beating +rapidly, and facing her the silent white men stared at these two +known faces, as if across a gulf. Four Illanun chiefs sat in a +row. Their ample cloaks fell from their shoulders, and lay behind +them on the sand in which their four long lances were planted +upright, each supporting a small oblong shield of wood, carved on +the edges and stained a dull purple. Daman stretched out his arm +and pointed at the prisoners. The faces of the white men were +very quiet. Daman looked at them mutely and ardently, as if +consumed by an unspeakable longing. + +The Koran, in a silk cover, hung on his breast by a crimson cord. +It rested over his heart and, just below, the plain buffalo-horn +handle of a kris, stuck into the twist of his sarong, protruded +ready to his hand. The clouds thickening over the camp made the +darkness press heavily on the glow of scattered fires. "There is +blood between me and the whites," he pronounced, violently. The +Illanun chiefs remained impassive. There was blood between them +and all mankind. Hassim remarked dispassionately that there was +one white man with whom it would be wise to remain friendly; and +besides, was not Daman his friend already? Daman smiled with +half-closed eyes. He was that white man's friend, not his slave. +The Illanuns playing with their sword-handles grunted assent. +Why, asked Daman, did these strange whites travel so far from +their country? The great white man whom they all knew did not +want them. No one wanted them. Evil would follow in their +footsteps. They were such men as are sent by rulers to examine +the aspects of far-off countries and talk of peace and make +treaties. Such is the beginning of great sorrows. The Illanuns +were far from their country, where no white man dared to come, +and therefore they were free to seek their enemies upon the open +waters. They had found these two who had come to see. He asked +what they had come to see? Was there nothing to look at in their +own country? + +He talked in an ironic and subdued tone. The scattered heaps of +embers glowed a deeper red; the big blaze of the chief's fire +sank low and grew dim before he ceased. Straight-limbed figures +rose, sank, moved, whispered on the beach. Here and there a +spear-blade caught a red gleam above the black shape of a head. + +"The Illanuns seek booty on the sea," cried Daman. "Their fathers +and the fathers of their fathers have done the same, being +fearless like those who embrace death closely." + +A low laugh was heard. "We strike and go," said an exulting +voice. "We live and die with our weapons in our hands." The +Illanuns leaped to their feet. They stamped on the sand, +flourishing naked blades over the heads of their prisoners. A +tumult arose. + +When it subsided Daman stood up in a cloak that wrapped him to +his feet and spoke again giving advice. + +The white men sat on the sand and turned their eyes from face to +face as if trying to understand. It was agreed to send the +prisoners into the lagoon where their fate would be decided by +the ruler of the land. The Illanuns only wanted to plunder the +ship. They did not care what became of the men. "But Daman +cares," remarked Hassim to Lingard, when relating what took +place. "He cares, O Tuan!" + +Hassim had learned also that the Settlement was in a state of +unrest as if on the eve of war. Belarab with his followers was +encamped by his father's tomb in the hollow beyond the cultivated +fields. His stockade was shut up and no one appeared on the +verandahs of the houses within. You could tell there were people +inside only by the smoke of the cooking fires. Tengga's followers +meantime swaggered about the Settlement behaving tyrannically to +those who were peaceable. A great madness had descended upon the +people, a madness strong as the madness of love, the madness of +battle, the desire to spill blood. A strange fear also had made +them wild. The big smoke seen that morning above the forests of +the coast was some agreed signal from Tengga to Daman but what it +meant Hassim had been unable to find out. He feared for +Jorgenson's safety. He said that while one of the war-boats was +being made ready to take the captives into the lagoon, he and his +sister left the camp quietly and got away in their canoe. The +flares of the brig, reflected in a faint loom upon the clouds, +enabled them to make straight for the vessel across the banks. +Before they had gone half way these flames went out and the +darkness seemed denser than any he had known before. But it was +no greater than the darkness of his mind--he added. He had looked +upon the white men sitting unmoved and silent under the edge of +swords; he had looked at Daman, he had heard bitter words spoken; +he was looking now at his white friend--and the issue of events +he could not see. One can see men's faces but their fate, which +is written on their foreheads, one cannot see. He had no more to +say, and what he had spoken was true in every word. + + + +IV + +Lingard repeated it all to Mrs. Travers. Her courage, her +intelligence, the quickness of her apprehension, the colour of +her eyes and the intrepidity of her glance evoked in him an +admiring enthusiasm. She stood by his side! Every moment that +fatal illusion clung closer to his soul--like a garment of +light--like an armour of fire. + +He was unwilling to face the facts. All his life--till that +day--had been a wrestle with events in the daylight of this +world, but now he could not bring his mind to the consideration +of his position. It was Mrs. Travers who, after waiting awhile, +forced on him the pain of thought by wanting to know what bearing +Hassim's news had upon the situation. + +Lingard had not the slightest doubt Daman wanted him to know what +had been done with the prisoners. That is why Daman had welcomed +Hassim, and let him hear the decision and had allowed him to +leave the camp on the sandbank. There could be only one object in +this; to let him, Lingard, know that the prisoners had been put +out of his reach as long as he remained in his brig. Now this +brig was his strength. To make him leave his brig was like +removing his hand from his sword. + +"Do you understand what I mean, Mrs. Travers?" he asked. "They +are afraid of me because I know how to fight this brig. They fear +the brig because when I am on board her, the brig and I are one. +An armed man--don't you see? Without the brig I am disarmed, +without me she can't strike. So Daman thinks. He does not know +everything but he is not far off the truth. He says to himself +that if I man the boats to go after these whites into the lagoon +then his Illanuns will get the yacht for sure--and perhaps the +brig as well. If I stop here with my brig he holds the two white +men and can talk as big as he pleases. Belarab believes in me no +doubt, but Daman trusts no man on earth. He simply does not know +how to trust any one, because he is always plotting himself. He +came to help me and as soon as he found I was not there he began +to plot with Tengga. Now he has made a move--a clever move; a +cleverer move than he thinks. Why? I'll tell you why. Because I, +Tom Lingard, haven't a single white man aboard this brig I can +trust. Not one. I only just discovered my mate's got the notion I +am some kind of pirate. And all your yacht people think the same. +It is as though you had brought a curse on me in your yacht. +Nobody believes me. Good God! What have I come to! Even those +two--look at them--I say look at them! By all the stars they +doubt me! Me! . . ." + +He pointed at Hassim and Immada. The girl seemed frightened. +Hassim looked on calm and intelligent with inexhaustible +patience. Lingard's voice fell suddenly. + +"And by heavens they may be right. Who knows? You? Do you know? +They have waited for years. Look. They are waiting with heavy +hearts. Do you think that I don't care? Ought I to have kept it +all in--told no one--no one--not even you? Are they waiting for +what will never come now?" + +Mrs. Travers rose and moved quickly round the table. "Can we give +anything to this--this Daman or these other men? We could give +them more than they could think of asking. I--my husband. . . ." + +"Don't talk to me of your husband," he said, roughly. "You don't +know what you are doing." She confronted the sombre anger of his +eyes--"But I must," she asserted with heat.--"Must," he mused, +noticing that she was only half a head less tall than himself. +"Must! Oh, yes. Of course, you must. Must! Yes. But I don't want +to hear. Give! What can you give? You may have all the treasures +of the world for all I know. No! You can't give anything. . . ." + +"I was thinking of your difficulty when I spoke," she +interrupted. His eyes wandered downward following the line of her +shoulder.--"Of me--of me!" he repeated. + +All this was said almost in whispers. The sound of slow footsteps +was heard on deck above their heads. Lingard turned his face to +the open skylight. + +"On deck there! Any wind?" + +All was still for a moment. Somebody above answered in a +leisurely tone: + +"A steady little draught from the northward." + +Then after a pause added in a mutter: + +"Pitch dark." + +"Aye, dark enough," murmured Lingard. He must do something. Now. +At once. The world was waiting. The world full of hopes and fear. +What should he do? Instead of answering that question he traced +the ungleaming coils of her twisted hair and became fascinated by +a stray lock at her neck. What should he do? No one to leave his +brig to. The voice that had answered his question was Carter's +voice. "He is hanging about keeping his eye on me," he said to +Mrs. Travers. She shook her head and tried to smile. The man +above coughed discreetly. "No," said Lingard, "you must +understand that you have nothing to give." + +The man on deck who seemed to have lingered by the skylight was +heard saying quietly, "I am at hand if you want me, Mrs. +Travers." Hassim and Immada looked up. "You see," exclaimed +Lingard. "What did I tell you? He's keeping his eye on me! On +board my own ship. Am I dreaming? Am I in a fever? Tell him to +come down," he said after a pause. Mrs. Travers did so and +Lingard thought her voice very commanding and very sweet. +"There's nothing in the world I love so much as this brig," he +went on. " Nothing in the world. If I lost her I would have no +standing room on the earth for my feet. You don't understand +this. You can't." + +Carter came in and shut the cabin door carefully. He looked with +serenity at everyone in turn. + +"All quiet?" asked Lingard. + +"Quiet enough if you like to call it so," he answered. "But if +you only put your head outside the door you'll hear them all on +the quarter-deck snoring against each other, as if there were no +wives at home and no pirates at sea." + +"Look here," said Lingard. "I found out that I can't trust my +mate." + +"Can't you?" drawled Carter. "I am not exactly surprised. I must +say HE does not snore but I believe it is because he is too crazy +to sleep. He waylaid me on the poop just now and said something +about evil communications corrupting good manners. Seems to me +I've heard that before. Queer thing to say. He tried to make it +out somehow that if he wasn't corrupt it wasn't your fault. As if +this was any concern of mine. He's as mad as he's fat--or else he +puts it on." Carter laughed a little and leaned his shoulders +against a bulkhead. + +Lingard gazed at the woman who expected so much from him and in +the light she seemed to shed he saw himself leading a column of +armed boats to the attack of the Settlement. He could burn the +whole place to the ground and drive every soul of them into the +bush. He could! And there was a surprise, a shock, a vague horror +at the thought of the destructive power of his will. He could +give her ever so many lives. He had seen her yesterday, and it +seemed to him he had been all his life waiting for her to make a +sign. She was very still. He pondered a plan of attack. He saw +smoke and flame--and next moment he saw himself alone amongst +shapeless ruins with the whispers, with the sigh and moan of the +Shallows in his ears. He shuddered, and shaking his hand: + +"No! I cannot give you all those lives!" he cried. + +Then, before Mrs. Travers could guess the meaning of this +outburst, he declared that as the two captives must be saved he +would go alone into the lagoon. He could not think of using +force. "You understand why," he said to Mrs. Travers and she +whispered a faint "Yes." He would run the risk alone. His hope +was in Belarab being able to see where his true interest lay. "If +I can only get at him I would soon make him see," he mused aloud. +"Haven't I kept his power up for these two years past? And he +knows it, too. He feels it." Whether he would be allowed to reach +Belarab was another matter. Lingard lost himself in deep thought. +"He would not dare," he burst out. Mrs. Travers listened with +parted lips. Carter did not move a muscle of his youthful and +self-possessed face; only when Lingard, turning suddenly, came up +close to him and asked with a red flash of eyes and in a lowered +voice, "Could you fight this brig?" something like a smile made a +stir amongst the hairs of his little fair moustache. + +"'Could I?" he said. "I could try, anyhow." He paused, and added +hardly above his breath, "For the lady--of course." + +Lingard seemed staggered as though he had been hit in the chest. +"I was thinking of the brig," he said, gently. + +"Mrs. Travers would be on board," retorted Carter. + +"What! on board. Ah yes; on board. Where else?" stammered +Lingard. + +Carter looked at him in amazement. "Fight! You ask!" he said, +slowly. "You just try me." + +"I shall," ejaculated Lingard. He left the cabin calling out +"serang!" A thin cracked voice was heard immediately answering, +"Tuan!" and the door slammed to. + +"You trust him, Mrs. Travers?" asked Carter, rapidly. + +"You do not--why?" she answered. + +"I can't make him out. If he was another kind of man I would say +he was drunk," said Carter. "Why is he here at all--he, and this +brig of his? Excuse my boldness--but have you promised him +anything?" + +"I--I promised!" exclaimed Mrs. Travers in a bitter tone which +silenced Carter for a moment. + +"So much the better," he said at last. "Let him show what he can +do first and . . ." + +"Here! Take this," said Lingard, who re-entered the cabin +fumbling about his neck. Carter mechanically extended his hand. + +"What's this for?" he asked, looking at a small brass key +attached to a thin chain. + +"Powder magazine. Trap door under the table. The man who has this +key commands the brig while I am away. The serang understands. +You have her very life in your hand there." + +Carter looked at the small key lying in his half-open palm. + +"I was just telling Mrs. Travers I didn't trust you--not +altogether. . . ." + +"I know all about it," interrupted Lingard, contemptuously. "You +carry a blamed pistol in your pocket to blow my brains out--don't +you? What's that to me? I am thinking of the brig. I think I know +your sort. You will do." + +"Well, perhaps I might," mumbled Carter, modestly. + +"Don't be rash," said Lingard, anxiously. "If you've got to fight +use your head as well as your hands. If there's a breeze fight +under way. If they should try to board in a calm, trust to the +small arms to hold them off. Keep your head and--" He looked +intensely into Carter's eyes; his lips worked without a sound as +though he had been suddenly struck dumb. "Don't think about me. +What's that to you who I am? Think of the ship," he burst out. +"Don't let her go!--Don't let her go!" The passion in his voice +impressed his hearers who for a time preserved a profound +silence. + +"All right," said Carter at last. "I will stick to your brig as +though she were my own; but I would like to see clear through all +this. Look here--you are going off somewhere? Alone, you said?" + +"Yes. Alone." + +"Very well. Mind, then, that you don't come back with a crowd of +those brown friends of yours--or by the Heavens above us I won't +let you come within hail of your own ship. Am I to keep this +key?" + +"Captain Lingard," said Mrs. Travers suddenly. "Would it not be +better to tell him everything?" + +"Tell him everything?" repeated Lingard. "Everything! Yesterday +it might have been done. Only yesterday! Yesterday, did I say? +Only six hours ago--only six hours ago I had something to tell. +You heard it. And now it's gone. Tell him! There's nothing to +tell any more." He remained for a time with bowed head, while +before him Mrs. Travers, who had begun a gesture of protest, +dropped her arms suddenly. In a moment he looked up again. + +"Keep the key," he said, calmly, "and when the time comes step +forward and take charge. I am satisfied." + +"I would like to see clear through all this though," muttered +Carter again. "And for how long are you leaving us, Captain?" +Lingard made no answer. Carter waited awhile. "Come, sir," he +urged. "I ought to have some notion. What is it? Two, three +days?" Lingard started. + +"Days," he repeated. "Ah, days. What is it you want to know? Two +. . . three--what did the old fellow say--perhaps for life." This +was spoken so low that no one but Carter heard the last +words.--"Do you mean it?" he murmured. Lingard nodded.--"Wait as +long as you can--then go," he said in the same hardly audible +voice. "Go where?"--"Where you like, nearest port, any +port."--"Very good. That's something plain at any rate," +commented the young man with imperturbable good humour. + +"I go, O Hassim!" began Lingard and the Malay made a slow +inclination of the head which he did not raise again till Lingard +had ceased speaking. He betrayed neither surprise nor any other +emotion while Lingard in a few concise and sharp sentences made +him acquainted with his purpose to bring about singlehanded the +release of the prisoners. When Lingard had ended with the words: +"And you must find a way to help me in the time of trouble, O +Rajah Hassim," he looked up and said: + +"Good. You never asked me for anything before." + +He smiled at his white friend. There was something subtle in the +smile and afterward an added firmness in the repose of the lips. +Immada moved a step forward. She looked at Lingard with terror in +her black and dilated eyes. She exclaimed in a voice whose +vibration startled the hearts of all the hearers with an +indefinable sense of alarm, "He will perish, Hassim! He will +perish alone!" + +"No," said Hassim. "Thy fear is as vain to-night as it was at +sunrise. He shall not perish alone." + +Her eyelids dropped slowly. From her veiled eyes the tears fell, +vanishing in the silence. Lingard's forehead became furrowed by +folds that seemed to contain an infinity of sombre thoughts. +"Remember, O Hassim, that when I promised you to take you back to +your country you promised me to be a friend to all white men. A +friend to all whites who are of my people, forever." + +"My memory is good, O Tuan," said Hassim; "I am not yet back in +my country, but is not everyone the ruler of his own heart? +Promises made by a man of noble birth live as long as the speaker +endures." + +"Good-bye," said Lingard to Mrs. Travers. "You will be safe +here." He looked all around the cabin. " I leave you," he began +again and stopped short. Mrs. Travers' hand, resting lightly on +the edge of the table, began to tremble. "It's for you . . . Yes. +For you alone . . . and it seems it can't be. . . ." + +It seemed to him that he was saying good-bye to all the world, +that he was taking a last leave of his own self. Mrs. Travers did +not say a word, but Immada threw herself between them and cried: + +"You are a cruel woman! You are driving him away from where his +strength is. You put madness into his heart, O! Blind--without +pity--without shame! . . ." + +"Immada," said Hassim's calm voice. Nobody moved. + +"What did she say to me?" faltered Mrs. Travers and again +repeated in a voice that sounded hard, "What did she say?" + +"Forgive her," said Lingard. "Her fears are for me . . ."--"It's +about your going?" Mrs. Travers interrupted, swiftly. + +"Yes, it is--and you must forgive her." He had turned away his +eyes with something that resembled embarrassment but suddenly he +was assailed by an irresistible longing to look again at that +woman. At the moment of parting he clung to her with his glance +as a man holds with his hands a priceless and disputed +possession. The faint blush that overspread gradually Mrs. +Travers' features gave her face an air of extraordinary and +startling animation. + +"The danger you run?" she asked, eagerly. He repelled the +suggestion by a slighting gesture of the hand.--"Nothing worth +looking at twice. Don't give it a thought," he said. "I've been +in tighter places." He clapped his hands and waited till he heard +the cabin door open behind his back. "Steward, my pistols." The +mulatto in slippers, aproned to the chin, glided through the +cabin with unseeing eyes as though for him no one there had +existed. . . .--"Is it my heart that aches so?" Mrs. Travers +asked herself, contemplating Lingard's motionless figure. "How +long will this sensation of dull pain last? Will it last forever. +. . ." --"How many changes of clothes shall I put up, sir?" asked +the steward, while Lingard took the pistols from him and eased +the hammers after putting on fresh caps. --"I will take nothing +this time, steward." He received in turn from the mulatto's hands +a red silk handkerchief, a pocket book, a cigar-case. He knotted +the handkerchief loosely round his throat; it was evident he was +going through the routine of every departure for the shore; he +even opened the cigar-case to see whether it had been +filled.--"Hat, sir," murmured the half-caste. Lingard flung it on +his head.--"Take your orders from this lady, steward--till I come +back. The cabin is hers--do you hear?" He sighed ready to go and +seemed unable to lift a foot.--"I am coming with you," declared +Mrs. Travers suddenly in a tone of unalterable decision. He did +not look at her; he did not even look up; he said nothing, till +after Carter had cried: "You can't, Mrs. Travers!"--when without +budging he whispered to himself:--"Of course." Mrs. Travers had +pulled already the hood of her cloak over her head and her face +within the dark cloth had turned an intense and unearthly white, +in which the violet of her eyes appeared unfathomably mysterious. +Carter started forward.--"You don't know this man," he almost +shouted. + +"I do know him," she said, and before the reproachfully +unbelieving attitude of the other she added, speaking slowly and +with emphasis: "There is not, I verily believe, a single thought +or act of his life that I don't know."--"It's true--it's true," +muttered Lingard to himself. Carter threw up his arms with a +groan. "Stand back," said a voice that sounded to him like a +growl of thunder, and he felt a grip on his hand which seemed to +crush every bone. He jerked it away.--"Mrs. Travers! stay," he +cried. They had vanished through the open door and the sound of +their footsteps had already died away. Carter turned about +bewildered as if looking for help.--"Who is he, steward? Who in +the name of all the mad devils is he? "he asked, wildly. He was +confounded by the cold and philosophical tone of the +answer:--"'Tain't my place to trouble about that, sir--nor yours +I guess."--"Isn't it!" shouted Carter. "Why, he has carried the +lady off." The steward was looking critically at the lamp and +after a while screwed the light down.--"That's better," he +mumbled.--"Good God! What is a fellow to do?" continued Carter, +looking at Hassim and Immada who were whispering together and +gave him only an absent glance. He rushed on deck and was struck +blind instantly by the night that seemed to have been lying in +wait for him; he stumbled over something soft, kicked something +hard, flung himself on the rail. "Come back," he cried. "Come +back. Captain! Mrs. Travers!--or let me come, too." + +He listened. The breeze blew cool against his cheek. A black +bandage seemed to lie over his eyes. "Gone," he groaned, utterly +crushed. And suddenly he heard Mrs. Travers' voice remote in the +depths of the night.--"Defend the brig," it said, and these +words, pronouncing themselves in the immensity of a lightless +universe, thrilled every fibre of his body by the commanding +sadness of their tone. "Defend, defend the brig." . . . "I am +damned if I do," shouted Carter in despair. "Unless you come +back! . . . Mrs. Travers!" + +" . . . as though--I were--on board--myself," went on the rising +cadence of the voice, more distant now, a marvel of faint and +imperious clearness. + +Carter shouted no more; he tried to make out the boat for a time, +and when, giving it up, he leaped down from the rail, the heavy +obscurity of the brig's main deck was agitated like a sombre pool +by his jump, swayed, eddied, seemed to break up. Blotches of +darkness recoiled, drifted away, bare feet shuffled hastily, +confused murmurs died out. "Lascars," he muttered, "The crew is +all agog." Afterward he listened for a moment to the faintly +tumultuous snores of the white men sleeping in rows, with their +heads under the break of the poop. Somewhere about his feet, the +yacht's black dog, invisible, and chained to a deck-ringbolt, +whined, rattled the thin links, pattered with his claws in his +distress at the unfamiliar surroundings, begging for the charity +of human notice. Carter stooped impulsively, and was met by a +startling lick in the face.--"Hallo, boy!" He thumped the thick +curly sides, stroked the smooth head--"Good boy, Rover. Down. Lie +down, dog. You don't know what to make of it--do you, boy?" The +dog became still as death. "Well, neither do I," muttered Carter. +But such natures are helped by a cheerful contempt for the +intricate and endless suggestions of thought. He told himself +that he would soon see what was to come of it, and dismissed all +speculation. Had he been a little older he would have felt that +the situation was beyond his grasp; but he was too young to see +it whole and in a manner detached from himself. All these +inexplicable events filled him with deep concern--but then on the +other hand he had the key of the magazine and he could not find +it in his heart to dislike Lingard. He was positive about this at +last, and to know that much after the discomfort of an inward +conflict went a long way toward a solution. When he followed Shaw +into the cabin he could not repress a sense of enjoyment or hide +a faint and malicious smile. + +"Gone away--did you say? And carried off the lady with him?" +discoursed Shaw very loud in the doorway. "Did he? Well, I am not +surprised. What can you expect from a man like that, who leaves +his ship in an open roadstead without--I won't say orders--but +without as much as a single word to his next in command? And at +night at that! That just shows you the kind of man. Is this the +way to treat a chief mate? I apprehend he was riled at the little +al-ter-cation we had just before you came on board. I told him a +truth or two--but--never mind. There's the law and that's enough +for me. I am captain as long as he is out of the ship, and if his +address before very long is not in one of Her Majesty's jails or +other I au-tho-rize you to call me a Dutchman. You mark my +words." + +He walked in masterfully, sat down and surveyed the cabin in a +leisurely and autocratic manner; but suddenly his eyes became +stony with amazement and indignation; he pointed a fat and +trembling forefinger. + +"Niggers," he said, huskily. "In the cuddy! In the cuddy!" He +appeared bereft of speech for a time. + +Since he entered the cabin Hassim had been watching him in +thoughtful and expectant silence. "I can't have it," he continued +with genuine feeling in his voice. "Damme! I've too much respect +for myself." He rose with heavy deliberation; his eyes bulged out +in a severe and dignified stare. "Out you go!" he bellowed; +suddenly, making a step forward.--"Great Scott! What are you up +to, mister?" asked in a tone of dispassionate surprise the +steward whose head appeared in the doorway. "These are the +Captain's friends." "Show me a man's friends and . . ." began +Shaw, dogmatically, but abruptly passed into the tone of +admonition. "You take your mug out of the way, bottlewasher. They +ain't friends of mine. I ain't a vagabond. I know what's due to +myself. Quit!" he hissed, fiercely. Hassim, with an alert +movement, grasped the handle of his kris. Shaw puffed out his +cheeks and frowned.--" Look out! He will stick you like a prize +pig," murmured Carter without moving a muscle. Shaw looked round +helplessly.--"And you would enjoy the fun-- wouldn't you?" he +said with slow bitterness. Carter's distant non-committal smile +quite overwhelmed him by its horrid frigidity. Extreme +despondency replaced the proper feeling of racial pride in the +primitive soul of the mate. "My God! What luck! What have I done +to fall amongst that lot?" he groaned, sat down, and took his big +grey head in his hands. Carter drew aside to make room for +Immada, who, in obedience to a whisper from her brother, sought +to leave the cabin. She passed out after an instant of +hesitation, during which she looked up at Carter once. Her +brother, motionless in a defensive attitude, protected her +retreat. She disappeared; Hassim's grip on his weapon relaxed; he +looked in turn at every object in the cabin as if to fix its +position in his mind forever, and following his sister, walked +out with noiseless footfalls. + +They entered the same darkness which had received, enveloped, and +hidden the troubled souls of Lingard and Edith, but to these two +the light from which they had felt themselves driven away was now +like the light of forbidden hopes; it had the awful and tranquil +brightness that a light burning on the shore has for an exhausted +swimmer about to give himself up to the fateful sea. They looked +back; it had disappeared; Carter had shut the cabin door behind +them to have it out with Shaw. He wanted to arrive at some kind +of working compromise with the nominal commander, but the mate +was so demoralized by the novelty of the assaults made upon his +respectability that the young defender of the brig could get +nothing from him except lamentations mingled with mild +blasphemies. The brig slept, and along her quiet deck the voices +raised in her cabin--Shaw's appeals and reproaches directed +vociferously to heaven, together with Carter's inflexible drawl +mingled into one deadened, modulated, and continuous murmur. The +lockouts in the waist, motionless and peering into obscurity, one +ear turned to the sea, were aware of that strange resonance like +the ghost of a quarrel that seemed to hover at their backs. +Wasub, after seeing Hassim and Immada into their canoe, prowled +to and fro the whole length of the vessel vigilantly. There was +not a star in the sky and no gleam on the water; there was no +horizon, no outline, no shape for the eye to rest upon, nothing +for the hand to grasp. An obscurity that seemed without limit in +space and time had submerged the universe like a destroying +flood. + +A lull of the breeze kept for a time the small boat in the +neighbourhood of the brig. The hoisted sail, invisible, fluttered +faintly, mysteriously, and the boat rising and falling bodily to +the passage of each invisible undulation of the waters seemed to +repose upon a living breast. Lingard, his hand on the tiller, sat +up erect, expectant and silent. Mrs. Travers had drawn her cloak +close around her body. Their glances plunged infinitely deep into +a lightless void, and yet they were still so near the brig that +the piteous whine of the dog, mingled with the angry rattling of +the chain, reached their ears faintly, evoking obscure images of +distress and fury. A sharp bark ending in a plaintive howl that +seemed raised by the passage of phantoms invisible to men, rent +the black stillness, as though the instinct of the brute inspired +by the soul of night had voiced in a lamentable plaint the fear +of the future, the anguish of lurking death, the terror of +shadows. Not far from the brig's boat Hassim and Immada in their +canoe, letting their paddles trail in the water, sat in a silent +and invincible torpor as if the fitful puffs of wind had carried +to their hearts the breath of a subtle poison that, very soon, +would make them die.--"Have you seen the white woman's eyes?" +cried the girl. She struck her palms together loudly and remained +with her arms extended, with her hands clasped. "O Hassim! Have +you seen her eyes shining under her eyebrows like rays of light +darting under the arched boughs in a forest? They pierced me. I +shuddered at the sound of her voice! I saw her walk behind +him--and it seems to me that she does not live on earth--that all +this is witchcraft." + +She lamented in the night. Hassim kept silent. He had no +illusions and in any other man but Lingard he would have thought +the proceeding no better than suicidal folly. For him Travers and +d'Alcacer were two powerful Rajahs--probably relatives of the +Ruler of the land of the English whom he knew to be a woman; but +why they should come and interfere with the recovery of his own +kingdom was an obscure problem. He was concerned for Lingard's +safety. That the risk was incurred mostly for his sake--so that +the prospects of the great enterprise should not be ruined by a +quarrel over the lives of these whites--did not strike him so +much as may be imagined. There was that in him which made such an +action on Lingard's part appear all but unavoidable. Was he not +Rajah Hassim and was not the other a man of strong heart, of +strong arm, of proud courage, a man great enough to protect +highborn princes--a friend? Immada's words called out a smile +which, like the words, was lost in the darkness. "Forget your +weariness," he said, gently, "lest, O Sister, we should arrive +too late." The coming day would throw its light on some decisive +event. Hassim thought of his own men who guarded the Emma and he +wished to be where they could hear his voice. He regretted Jaffir +was not there. Hassim was saddened by the absence from his side +of that man who once had carried what he thought would be his +last message to his friend. It had not been the last. He had +lived to cherish new hopes and to face new troubles and, +perchance, to frame another message yet, while death knocked with +the hands of armed enemies at the gate. The breeze steadied; the +succeeding swells swung the canoe smoothly up the unbroken ridges +of water travelling apace along the land. They progressed slowly; +but Immada's heart was more weary than her arms, and Hassim, +dipping the blade of his paddle without a splash, peered right +and left, trying to make out the shadowy forms of islets. A long +way ahead of the canoe and holding the same course, the brig's +dinghy ran with broad lug extended, making for that narrow and +winding passage between the coast and the southern shoals, which +led to the mouth of the creek connecting the lagoon with the sea. + +Thus on that starless night the Shallows were peopled by uneasy +souls. The thick veil of clouds stretched over them, cut them off +from the rest of the universe. At times Mrs. Travers had in the +darkness the impression of dizzy speed, and again it seemed to +her that the boat was standing still, that everything in the +world was standing still and only her fancy roamed free from all +trammels. Lingard, perfectly motionless by her side, steered, +shaping his course by the feel of the wind. Presently he +perceived ahead a ghostly flicker of faint, livid light which the +earth seemed to throw up against the uniform blackness of the +sky. The dinghy was approaching the expanse of the Shallows. The +confused clamour of broken water deepened its note. + +"How long are we going to sail like this?" asked Mrs. Travers, +gently. She did not recognize the voice that pronounced the word +"Always" in answer to her question. It had the impersonal ring of +a voice without a master. Her heart beat fast. + +"Captain Lingard!" she cried. + +"Yes. What?" he said, nervously, as if startled out of a dream. + +"I asked you how long we were going to sail like this," she +repeated, distinctly. + +"If the breeze holds we shall be in the lagoon soon after +daybreak. That will be the right time, too. I shall leave you on +board the hulk with Jorgenson." + +"And you? What will you do?" she asked. She had to wait for a +while. + +"I will do what I can," she heard him say at last. There was +another pause. "All I can," he added. + +The breeze dropped, the sail fluttered. + +"I have perfect confidence in you," she said. "But are you +certain of success?" + +"No." + +The futility of her question came home to Mrs. Travers. In a few +hours of life she had been torn away from all her certitudes, +flung into a world of improbabilities. This thought instead of +augmenting her distress seemed to soothe her. What she +experienced was not doubt and it was not fear. It was something +else. It might have been only a great fatigue. + +She heard a dull detonation as if in the depth of the sea. It was +hardly more than a shock and a vibration. A roller had broken +amongst the shoals; the livid clearness Lingard had seen ahead +flashed and flickered in expanded white sheets much nearer to the +boat now. And all this--the wan burst of light, the faint shock +as of something remote and immense falling into ruins, was taking +place outside the limits of her life which remained encircled by +an impenetrable darkness and by an impenetrable silence. Puffs of +wind blew about her head and expired; the sail collapsed, +shivered audibly, stood full and still in turn; and again the +sensation of vertiginous speed and of absolute immobility +succeeding each other with increasing swiftness merged at last +into a bizarre state of headlong motion and profound peace. The +darkness enfolded her like the enervating caress of a sombre +universe. It was gentle and destructive. Its languor seduced her +soul into surrender. Nothing existed and even all her memories +vanished into space. She was content that nothing should exist. + +Lingard, aware all the time of their contact in the narrow stern +sheets of the boat, was startled by the pressure of the woman's +head drooping on his shoulder. He stiffened himself still more as +though he had tried on the approach of a danger to conceal his +life in the breathless rigidity of his body. The boat soared +and descended slowly; a region of foam and reefs stretched across +her course hissing like a gigantic cauldron; a strong gust of +wind drove her straight at it for a moment then passed on and +abandoned her to the regular balancing of the swell. The struggle +of the rocks forever overwhelmed and emerging, with the sea +forever victorious and repulsed, fascinated the man. He watched +it as he would have watched something going on within himself +while Mrs. Travers slept sustained by his arm, pressed to his +side, abandoned to his support. The shoals guarding the Shore of +Refuge had given him his first glimpse of success--the solid +support he needed for his action. The Shallows were the shelter +of his dreams; their voice had the power to soothe and exalt his +thoughts with the promise of freedom for his hopes. Never had +there been such a generous friendship. . . . A mass of white foam +whirling about a centre of intense blackness spun silently past +the side of the boat. . . . That woman he held like a captive on +his arm had also been given to him by the Shallows. + +Suddenly his eyes caught on a distant sandbank the red gleam of +Daman's camp fire instantly eclipsed like the wink of a +signalling lantern along the level of the waters. It brought to +his mind the existence of the two men--those other captives. If +the war canoe transporting them into the lagoon had left the +sands shortly after Hassim's retreat from Daman's camp, Travers +and d'Alcacer were by this time far away up the creek. Every +thought of action had become odious to Lingard since all he could +do in the world now was to hasten the moment of his separation +from that woman to whom he had confessed the whole secret of his +life. + +And she slept. She could sleep! He looked down at her as he would +have looked at the slumbering ignorance of a child, but the life +within him had the fierce beat of supreme moments. Near by, the +eddies sighed along the reefs, the water soughed amongst the +stones, clung round the rocks with tragic murmurs that resembled +promises, good-byes, or prayers. From the unfathomable distances +of the night came the booming of the swell assaulting the seaward +face of the Shallows. He felt the woman's nearness with such +intensity that he heard nothing. . . . Then suddenly he thought +of death. + +"Wake up!" he shouted in her ear, swinging round in his seat. +Mrs. Travers gasped; a splash of water flicked her over the eyes +and she felt the separate drops run down her cheeks, she tasted +them on her lips, tepid and bitter like tears. A swishing +undulation tossed the boat on high followed by another and still +another; and then the boat with the breeze abeam glided through +still water, laying over at a steady angle. + +"Clear of the reef now," remarked Lingard in a tone of relief. + +"Were we in any danger?" asked Mrs. Travers in a whisper. + +"Well, the breeze dropped and we drifted in very close to the +rocks," he answered. "I had to rouse you. It wouldn't have done +for you to wake up suddenly struggling in the water." + +So she had slept! It seemed to her incredible that she should +have closed her eyes in this small boat, with the knowledge of +their desperate errand, on so disturbed a sea. The man by her +side leaned forward, extended his arm, and the boat going off +before the wind went on faster on an even keel. A motionless +black bank resting on the sea stretched infinitely right in their +way in ominous stillness. She called Lingard's attention to it. +"Look at this awful cloud." + +"This cloud is the coast and in a moment we shall be entering the +creek," he said, quietly. Mrs. Travers stared at it. Was it +land--land! It seemed to her even less palpable than a cloud, a +mere sinister immobility above the unrest of the sea, nursing in +its depth the unrest of men who, to her mind, were no more real +than fantastic shadows. + + + +V + +What struck Mrs. Travers most, directly she set eyes on him, was +the other-world aspect of Jorgenson. He had been buried out of +sight so long that his tall, gaunt body, his unhurried, +mechanical movements, his set face and his eyes with an empty +gaze suggested an invincible indifference to all the possible +surprises of the earth. That appearance of a resuscitated man who +seemed to be commanded by a conjuring spell strolled along the +decks of what was even to Mrs. Travers' eyes the mere corpse of a +ship and turned on her a pair of deep-sunk, expressionless eyes +with an almost unearthly detachment. Mrs. Travers had never been +looked at before with that strange and pregnant abstraction. Yet +she didn't dislike Jorgenson. In the early morning light, white +from head to foot in a perfectly clean suit of clothes which +seemed hardly to contain any limbs, freshly shaven (Jorgenson's +sunken cheeks with their withered colouring always had a sort of +gloss as though he had the habit of shaving every two hours or +so), he looked as immaculate as though he had been indeed a pure +spirit superior to the soiling contacts of the material earth. He +was disturbing but he was not repulsive. He gave no sign of +greeting. + +Lingard addressed him at once. + +"You have had a regular staircase built up the side of the hulk, +Jorgenson," he said. "It was very convenient for us to come +aboard now, but in case of an attack don't you think . . ." + +"I did think." There was nothing so dispassionate in the world as +the voice of Captain H. C. Jorgenson, ex Barque Wild Rose, since +he had recrossed the Waters of Oblivion to step back into the +life of men. "I did think, but since I don't want to make +trouble. . . ." + +"Oh, you don't want to make trouble," interrupted Lingard. + +"No. Don't believe in it. Do you, King Tom?" + +"I may have to make trouble." + +"So you came up here in this small dinghy of yours like this to +start making trouble, did you?" + +"What's the matter with you? Don't you know me yet, Jorgenson?" + +"I thought I knew you. How could I tell that a man like you would +come along for a fight bringing a woman with him?" + +"This lady is Mrs. Travers," said Lingard. "The wife of one of +the luckless gentlemen Daman got hold of last evening. . . . This +is Jorgenson, the friend of whom I have been telling you, Mrs. +Travers." + +Mrs. Travers smiled faintly. Her eyes roamed far and near and the +strangeness of her surroundings, the overpowering curiosity, the +conflict of interest and doubt gave her the aspect of one still +new to life, presenting an innocent and naive attitude before the +surprises of experience. She looked very guileless and youthful +between those two men. Lingard gazed at her with that unconscious +tenderness mingled with wonder, which some men manifest toward +girlhood. There was nothing of a conqueror of kingdoms in his +bearing. Jorgenson preserved his amazing abstraction which seemed +neither to hear nor see anything. But, evidently, he kept a +mysterious grip on events in the world of living men because he +asked very naturally: + +"How did she get away?" + +"The lady wasn't on the sandbank," explained Lingard, curtly. + +"What sandbank?" muttered Jorgenson, perfunctorily. . . . "Is the +yacht looted, Tom?" + +"Nothing of the kind," said Lingard. + +"Ah, many dead?" inquired Jorgenson. + +"I tell you there was nothing of the kind," said Lingard, +impatiently. + +"What? No fight!" inquired Jorgenson again without the slightest +sign of animation. + +"No." + +"And you a fighting man." + +"Listen to me, Jorgenson. Things turned out so that before the +time came for a fight it was already too late." He turned to Mrs. +Travers still looking about with anxious eyes and a faint smile +on her lips. "While I was talking to you that evening from the +boat it was already too late. No. There was never any time for +it. I have told you all about myself, Mrs. Travers, and you know +that I speak the truth when I say too late. If you had only been +alone in that yacht going about the seas!" + +"Yes," she struck in, "but I was not alone." + +Lingard dropped his chin on his breast. Already a foretaste of +noonday heat staled the sparkling freshness of the morning. The +smile had vanished from Edith Travers' lips and her eyes rested +on Lingard's bowed head with an expression no longer curious but +which might have appeared enigmatic to Jorgenson if he had looked +at her. But Jorgenson looked at nothing. He asked from the +remoteness of his dead past, "What have you left outside, Tom? +What is there now?" + +"There's the yacht on the shoals, my brig at anchor, and about a +hundred of the worst kind of Illanun vagabonds under three chiefs +and with two war-praus moored to the edge of the bank. Maybe +Daman is with them, too, out there." + +"No," said Jorgenson, positively. + +"He has come in," cried Lingard. "He brought his prisoners in +himself then." + +"Landed by torchlight," uttered precisely the shade of Captain +Jorgenson, late of the Barque Wild Rose. He swung his arm +pointing across the lagoon and Mrs. Travers turned about in that +direction. + +All the scene was but a great light and a great solitude. Her +gaze travelled over the lustrous, dark sheet of empty water to a +shore bordered by a white beach empty, too, and showing no sign +of human life. The human habitations were lost in the shade of +the fruit trees, masked by the cultivated patches of Indian corn +and the banana plantations. Near the shore the rigid lines of two +stockaded forts could be distinguished flanking the beach, and +between them with a great open space before it, the brown roof +slope of an enormous long building that seemed suspended in the +air had a great square flag fluttering above it. Something like a +small white flame in the sky was the carved white coral finial on +the gable of the mosque which had caught full the rays of the +sun. A multitude of gay streamers, white and red, flew over the +half-concealed roofs, over the brilliant fields and amongst the +sombre palm groves. But it might have been a deserted settlement +decorated and abandoned by its departed population. Lingard +pointed to the stockade on the right. + +"That's where your husband is," he said to Mrs. Travers. + +"Who is the other?" uttered Jorgenson's voice at their backs. He +also was turned that way with his strange sightless gaze fixed +beyond them into the void. + +"A Spanish gentleman I believe you said, Mrs Travers," observed +Lingard. + +"It is extremely difficult to believe that there is anybody +there," murmured Mrs. Travers. + +"Did you see them both, Jorgenson?" asked Lingard. + +"Made out nobody. Too far. Too dark." + +As a matter of fact Jorgenson had seen nothing, about an hour +before daybreak, but the distant glare of torches while the loud +shouts of an excited multitude had reached him across the water +only like a faint and tempestuous murmur. Presently the lights +went away processionally through the groves of trees into the +armed stockades. The distant glare vanished in the fading +darkness and the murmurs of the invisible crowd ceased suddenly +as if carried off by the retreating shadow of the night. Daylight +followed swiftly, disclosing to the sleepless Jorgenson the +solitude of the shore and the ghostly outlines of the familiar +forms of grouped trees and scattered human habitations. He had +watched the varied colours come out in the dawn, the wide +cultivated Settlement of many shades of green, framed far away by +the fine black lines of the forest-edge that was its limit and +its protection. + +Mrs. Travers stood against the rail as motionless as a statue. +Her face had lost all its mobility and her cheeks were dead white +as if all the blood in her body had flowed back into her heart +and had remained there. Her very lips had lost their colour. +Lingard caught hold of her arm roughly. + +"Don't, Mrs. Travers. Why are you terrifying yourself like this? +If you don't believe what I say listen to me asking Jorgenson. . +. ." + +"Yes, ask me," mumbled Jorgenson in his white moustache. + +"Speak straight, Jorgenson. What do you think? Are the gentlemen +alive?" + +"Certainly," said Jorgenson in a sort of disappointed tone as +though he had expected a much more difficult question. + +"Is their life in immediate danger?" + +"Of course not," said Jorgenson. + +Lingard turned away from the oracle. "You have heard him, Mrs. +Travers. You may believe every word he says. There isn't a +thought or a purpose in that Settlement," he continued, pointing +at the dumb solitude of the lagoon, "that this man doesn't know +as if they were his own." + +"I know. Ask me," muttered Jorgenson, mechanically. + +Mrs. Travers said nothing but made a slight movement and her +whole rigid figure swayed dangerously. Lingard put his arm firmly +round her waist and she did not seem aware of it till after she +had turned her head and found Lingard's face very near her own. +But his eyes full of concern looked so close into hers that she +was obliged to shut them like a woman about to faint. + +The effect this produced upon Lingard was such that she felt the +tightening of his arm and as she opened her eyes again some of +the colour returned to her face. She met the deepened expression +of his solicitude with a look so steady, with a gaze that in +spite of herself was so profoundly vivid that its clearness +seemed to Lingard to throw all his past life into shade.--"I +don't feel faint. It isn't that at all," she declared in a +perfectly calm voice. It seemed to Lingard as cold as ice. + +"Very well," he agreed with a resigned smile. "But you just catch +hold of that rail, please, before I let you go." She, too, forced +a smile on her lips. + +"What incredulity," she remarked, and for a time made not the +slightest movement. At last, as if making a concession, she +rested the tips of her fingers on the rail. Lingard gradually +removed his arm. "And pray don't look upon me as a conventional +'weak woman' person, the delicate lady of your own conception," +she said, facing Lingard, with her arm extended to the rail. +"Make that effort please against your own conception of what a +woman like me should be. I am perhaps as strong as you are, +Captain Lingard. I mean it literally. In my body."--"Don't you +think I have seen that long ago?" she heard his deep voice +protesting.--"And as to my courage," Mrs. Travers continued, her +expression charmingly undecided between frowns and smiles; +"didn't I tell you only a few hours ago, only last evening, that +I was not capable of thinking myself into a fright; you remember, +when you were begging me to try something of the kind. Don't +imagine that I would have been ashamed to try. But I couldn't +have done it. No. Not even for the sake of somebody else's +kingdom. Do you understand me?" + +"God knows," said the attentive Lingard after a time, with an +unexpected sigh. "You people seem to be made of another stuff." + +"What has put that absurd notion into your head?" + +"I didn't mean better or worse. And I wouldn't say it isn't good +stuff either. What I meant to say is that it's different. One +feels it. And here we are." + +"Yes, here we are," repeated Mrs. Travers. "And as to this moment +of emotion, what provoked it is not a concern for anybody or +anything outside myself. I felt no terror. I cannot even fix my +fears upon any distinct image. You think I am shamelessly +heartless in telling you this." + +Lingard made no sign. It didn't occur to him to make a sign. He +simply hung on Mrs. Travers' words as it were only for the sake +of the sound.--"I am simply frank with you," she continued. "What +do I know of savagery, violence, murder? I have never seen a dead +body in my life. The light, the silence, the mysterious emptiness +of this place have suddenly affected my imagination, I suppose. +What is the meaning of this wonderful peace in which we +stand--you and I alone?" + +Lingard shook his head. He saw the narrow gleam of the woman's +teeth between the parted lips of her smile, as if all the ardour +of her conviction had been dissolved at the end of her speech +into wistful recognition of their partnership before things +outside their knowledge. And he was warmed by something a little +helpless in that smile. Within three feet of them the shade of +Jorgenson, very gaunt and neat, stared into space. + +"Yes. You are strong," said Lingard. "But a whole long night +sitting in a small boat! I wonder you are not too stiff to +stand." + +"I am not stiff in the least," she interrupted, still smiling. "I +am really a very strong woman," she added, earnestly. "Whatever +happens you may reckon on that fact." + +Lingard gave her an admiring glance. But the shade of Jorgenson, +perhaps catching in its remoteness the sound of the word woman, +was suddenly moved to begin scolding with all the liberty of a +ghost, in a flow of passionless indignation. + +"Woman! That's what I say. That's just about the last touch--that +you, Tom Lingard, red-eyed Tom, King Tom, and all those fine +names, that you should leave your weapons twenty miles behind +you, your men, your guns, your brig that is your strength, and +come along here with your mouth full of fight, bare-handed and +with a woman in tow.--Well--well!" + +"Don't forget, Jorgenson, that the lady hears you," remonstrated +Lingard in a vexed tone. . . . "He doesn't mean to be rude," he +remarked to Mrs. Travers quite loud, as if indeed Jorgenson were +but an immaterial and feelingless illusion. "He has forgotten." + +"The woman is not in the least offended. I ask for nothing better +than to be taken on that footing." + +"Forgot nothing!" mumbled Jorgenson with a sort of ghostly +assertiveness and as it were for his own satisfaction. "What's +the world coming to?" + +"It was I who insisted on coming with Captain Lingard," said Mrs. +Travers, treating Jorgenson to a fascinating sweetness of tone. + +"That's what I say! What is the world coming to? Hasn't King Tom +a mind of his own? What has come over him? He's mad! Leaving his +brig with a hundred and twenty born and bred pirates of the worst +kind in two praus on the other side of a sandbank. Did you insist +on that, too? Has he put himself in the hands of a strange +woman?" + +Jorgenson seemed to be asking those questions of himself. Mrs. +Travers observed the empty stare, the self-communing voice, his +unearthly lack of animation. Somehow it made it very easy to +speak the whole truth to him. + +"No," she said, "it is I who am altogether in his hands." + +Nobody would have guessed that Jorgenson had heard a single word +of that emphatic declaration if he had not addressed himself to +Lingard with the question neither more nor less abstracted than +all his other speeches. + +"Why then did you bring her along?" + +"You don't understand. It was only right and proper. One of the +gentlemen is the lady's husband." + +"Oh, yes," muttered Jorgenson. "Who's the other?" + +"You have been told. A friend." + +"Poor Mr. d'Alcacer," said Mrs. Travers. "What bad luck for him +to have accepted our invitation. But he is really a mere +acquaintance." + +"I hardly noticed him," observed Lingard, gloomily. "He was +talking to you over the back of your chair when I came aboard the +yacht as if he had been a very good friend." + +"We always understood each other very well," said Mrs. Travers, +picking up from the rail the long glass that was lying there. "I +always liked him, the frankness of his mind, and his great +loyalty." + +"What did he do?" asked Lingard. + +"He loved," said Mrs. Travers, lightly. "But that's an old +story." She raised the glass to her eyes, one arm extended fully +to sustain the long tube, and Lingard forgot d'Alcacer in +admiring the firmness of her pose and the absolute steadiness of +the heavy glass. She was as firm as a rock after all those +emotions and all that fatigue. + +Mrs. Travers directed the glass instinctively toward the entrance +of the lagoon. The smooth water there shone like a piece of +silver in the dark frame of the forest. A black speck swept +across the field of her vision. It was some time before she could +find it again and then she saw, apparently so near as to be +within reach of the voice, a small canoe with two people in it. +She saw the wet paddles rising and dipping with a flash in the +sunlight. She made out plainly the face of Immada, who seemed to +be looking straight into the big end of the telescope. The chief +and his sister, after resting under the bank for a couple of +hours in the middle of the night, had entered the lagoon and were +making straight for the hulk. They were already near enough to be +perfectly distinguishable to the naked eye if there had been +anybody on board to glance that way. But nobody was even thinking +of them. They might not have existed except perhaps in the memory +of old Jorgenson. But that was mostly busy with all the +mysterious secrets of his late tomb. + +Mrs. Travers lowered the glass suddenly. Lingard came out from a +sort of trance and said: + +"Mr. d'Alcacer. Loved! Why shouldn't he?" + +Mrs. Travers looked frankly into Lingard's gloomy eyes. "It isn't +that alone, of course," she said. "First of all he knew how to +love and then. . . . You don't know how artificial and barren +certain kinds of life can be. But Mr. d'Alcacer's life was not +that. His devotion was worth having." + +"You seem to know a lot about him,'" said Lingard, enviously. +"Why do you smile?" She continued to smile at him for a little +while. The long brass tube over her shoulder shone like gold +against the pale fairness of her bare head.--"At a thought," she +answered, preserving the low tone of the conversation into which +they had fallen as if their words could have disturbed the +self-absorption of Captain H. C. Jorgenson. "At the thought that +for all my long acquaintance with Mr. d'Alcacer I don't know half +as much about him as I know about you." + +"Ah, that's impossible," contradicted Lingard. "Spaniard or no +Spaniard, he is one of your kind." + +"Tarred with the same brush," murmured Mrs. Travers, with only a +half-amused irony. But Lingard continued: + +"He was trying to make it up between me and your husband, wasn't +he? I was too angry to pay much attention, but I liked him well +enough. What pleased me most was the way in which he gave it up. +That was done like a gentleman. Do you understand what I mean, +Mrs. Travers?" + +"I quite understand." + +"Yes, you would," he commented, simply. "But just then I was too +angry to talk to anybody. And so I cleared out on board my own +ship and stayed there, not knowing what to do and wishing you all +at the bottom of the sea. Don't mistake me, Mrs. Travers; it's +you, the people aft, that I wished at the bottom of the sea. I +had nothing against the poor devils on board, They would have +trusted me quick enough. So I fumed there till--till. . . . " + +"Till nine o'clock or a little after," suggested Mrs. Travers, +impenetrably. + +"No. Till I remembered you," said Lingard with the utmost +innocence. + +"Do you mean to say that you forgot my existence so completely +till then? You had spoken to me on board the yacht, you know." + +"Did I? I thought I did. What did I say?" + +"You told me not to touch a dusky princess," answered Mrs. +Travers with a short laugh. Then with a visible change of mood as +if she had suddenly out of a light heart been recalled to the +sense of the true situation: "But indeed I meant no harm to this +figure of your dream. And, look over there. She is pursuing you." +Lingard glanced toward the north shore and suppressed an +exclamation of remorse. For the second time he discovered that he +had forgotten the existence of Hassim and Immada. The canoe was +now near enough for its occupants to distinguish plainly the +heads of three people above the low bulwark of the Emma. Immada +let her paddle trail suddenly in the water, with the exclamation, +"I see the white woman there." Her brother looked over his +shoulder and the canoe floated, arrested as if by the sudden +power of a spell.--"They are no dream to me," muttered Lingard, +sturdily. Mrs. Travers turned abruptly away to look at the +further shore. It was still and empty to the naked eye and seemed +to quiver in the sunshine like an immense painted curtain lowered +upon the unknown. + +"Here's Rajah Hassim coming, Jorgenson. I had an idea he would +perhaps stay outside." Mrs. Travers heard Lingard's voice at her +back and the answering grunt of Jorgenson. She raised +deliberately the long glass to her eye, pointing it at the shore. + +She distinguished plainly now the colours in the flutter of the +streamers above the brown roofs of the large Settlement, the stir +of palm groves, the black shadows inland and the dazzling white +beach of coral sand all ablaze in its formidable mystery. She +swept the whole range of the view and was going to lower the +glass when from behind the massive angle of the stockade there +stepped out into the brilliant immobility of the landscape a man +in a long white gown and with an enormous black turban +surmounting a dark face. Slow and grave he paced the beach +ominously in the sunshine, an enigmatical figure in an Oriental +tale with something weird and menacing in its sudden emergence +and lonely progress. + +With an involuntary gasp Mrs. Travers lowered the glass. All at +once behind her back she heard a low musical voice beginning to +pour out incomprehensible words in a tone of passionate pleading. +Hassim and Immada had come on board and had approached Lingard. +Yes! It was intolerable to feel that this flow of soft speech +which had no meaning for her could make its way straight into +that man's heart. + + + +PART V. THE POINT OF HONOUR AND THE POINT OF PASSION + +I + +"May I come in?" + +"Yes," said a voice within. "The door is open." It had a wooden +latch. Mr. Travers lifted it while the voice of his wife +continued as he entered. "Did you imagine I had locked myself in? +Did you ever know me lock myself in?" + +Mr. Travers closed the door behind him. "No, it has never come to +that," he said in a tone that was not conciliatory. In that place +which was a room in a wooden hut and had a square opening without +glass but with a half-closed shutter he could not distinguish his +wife very well at once. She was sitting in an armchair and what +he could see best was her fair hair all loose over the back of +the chair. There was a moment of silence. The measured footsteps +of two men pacing athwart the quarter-deck of the dead ship Emma +commanded by the derelict shade of Jorgenson could be heard +outside. + +Jorgenson, on taking up his dead command, had a house of thin +boards built on the after deck for his own accommodation and that +of Lingard during his flying visits to the Shore of Refuge. A +narrow passage divided it in two and Lingard's side was furnished +with a camp bedstead, a rough desk, and a rattan armchair. On one +of his visits Lingard had brought with him a black seaman's chest +and left it there. Apart from these objects and a small +looking-glass worth about half a crown and nailed to the wall +there was nothing else in there whatever. What was on Jorgenson's +side of the deckhouse no one had seen, but from external evidence +one could infer the existence of a set of razors. + +The erection of that primitive deckhouse was a matter of +propriety rather than of necessity. It was proper that the white +men should have a place to themselves on board, but Lingard was +perfectly accurate when he told Mrs. Travers that he had never +slept there once. His practice was to sleep on deck. As to +Jorgenson, if he did sleep at all he slept very little. It might +have been said that he haunted rather than commanded the Emma. +His white form flitted here and there in the night or stood for +hours, silent, contemplating the sombre glimmer of the lagoon. +Mr. Travers' eyes accustomed gradually to the dusk of the place +could now distinguish more of his wife's person than the great +mass of honey-coloured hair. He saw her face, the dark eyebrows +and her eyes that seemed profoundly black in the half light. He +said: + +"You couldn't have done so here. There is neither lock nor bolt." + +"Isn't there? I didn't notice. I would know how to protect myself +without locks and bolts." + +"I am glad to hear it," said Mr. Travers in a sullen tone and +fell silent again surveying the woman in the chair. "Indulging +your taste for fancy dress," he went on with faint irony. + +Mrs. Travers clasped her hands behind her head. The wide sleeves +slipping back bared her arms to her shoulders. She was wearing a +Malay thin cotton jacket, cut low in the neck without a collar +and fastened with wrought silver clasps from the throat downward. +She had replaced her yachting skirt by a blue check sarong +embroidered with threads of gold. Mr. Travers' eyes travelling +slowly down attached themselves to the gleaming instep of an +agitated foot from which hung a light leather sandal. + +"I had no clothes with me but what I stood in," said Mrs. +Travers. "I found my yachting costume too heavy. It was +intolerable. I was soaked in dew when I arrived. So when these +things were produced for my inspection. . . ." + +"By enchantment," muttered Mr. Travers in a tone too heavy for +sarcasm. + +"No. Out of that chest. There are very fine stuffs there." + +"No doubt," said Mr. Travers. "The man wouldn't be above +plundering the natives. . . ." He sat down heavily on the chest. +"A most appropriate costume for this farce," he continued. "But +do you mean to wear it in open daylight about the decks?" + +"Indeed I do," said Mrs. Travers. "D'Alcacer has seen me already +and he didn't seem shocked." + +"You should," said Mr. Travers, "try to get yourself presented +with some bangles for your ankles so that you may jingle as you +walk." + +"Bangles are not necessities," said Mrs. Travers in a weary tone +and with the fixed upward look of a person unwilling to +relinquish her dream. Mr. Travers dropped the subject to ask: + +"And how long is this farce going to last?" + +Mrs. Travers unclasped her hands, lowered her glance, and changed +her whole pose in a moment. + +"What do you mean by farce? What farce?" + +"The one which is being played at my expense." + +"You believe that?" + +"Not only believe. I feel deeply that it is so. At my expense. +It's a most sinister thing," Mr. Travers pursued, still with +downcast eyes and in an unforgiving tone. "I must tell you that +when I saw you in that courtyard in a crowd of natives and +leaning on that man's arm, it gave me quite a shock." + +"Did I, too, look sinister?" said Mrs. Travers, turning her head +slightly toward her husband. "And yet I assure you that I was +glad, profoundly glad, to see you safe from danger for a time at +least. To gain time is everything. . . ." + +"I ask myself," Mr. Travers meditated aloud, "was I ever in +danger? Am I safe now? I don't know. I can't tell. No! All this +seems an abominable farce." + +There was that in his tone which made his wife continue to look +at him with awakened interest. It was obvious that he suffered +from a distress which was not the effect of fear; and Mrs. +Travers' face expressed real concern till he added in a freezing +manner: "The question, however, is as to your discretion." + +She leaned back again in the chair and let her hands rest quietly +in her lap. "Would you have preferred me to remain outside, in +the yacht, in the near neighbourhood of these wild men who +captured you? Or do you think that they, too, were got up to +carry on a farce?" + +"Most decidedly." Mr. Travers raised his head, though of course +not his voice. "You ought to have remained in the yacht amongst +white men, your servants, the sailing-master, the crew whose duty +it was to. . . . Who would have been ready to die for you." + +"I wonder why they should have--and why I should have asked them +for that sacrifice. However, I have no doubt they would have +died. Or would you have preferred me to take up my quarters on +board that man's brig? We were all fairly safe there. The real +reason why I insisted on coming in here was to be nearer to +you--to see for myself what could be or was being done. . . . But +really if you want me to explain my motives then I may just as +well say nothing. I couldn't remain outside for days without +news, in a state of horrible doubt. We couldn't even tell whether +you and d'Alcacer were still alive till we arrived here. You +might have been actually murdered on the sandbank, after Rajah +Hassim and that girl had gone away; or killed while going up the +river. And I wanted to know at once, as soon as possible. It was +a matter of impulse. I went off in what I stood in without +delaying a moment." + +"Yes," said Mr. Travers. "And without even thinking of having a +few things put up for me in a bag. No doubt you were in a state +of excitement. Unless you took such a tragic view that it seemed +to you hardly worth while to bother about my clothes." + +"It was absolutely the impulse of the moment. I could have done +nothing else. Won't you give me credit for it?" + +Mr. Travers raised his eyes again to his wife's face. He saw it +calm, her attitude reposeful. Till then his tone had been +resentful, dull, without sarcasm. But now he became slightly +pompous. + +"No. As a matter of fact, as a matter of experience, I can't +credit you with the possession of feelings appropriate to your +origin, social position, and the ideas of the class to which you +belong. It was the heaviest disappointment of my life. I had made +up my mind not to mention it as long as I lived. This, however, +seems an occasion which you have provoked yourself. It isn't at +all a solemn occasion. I don't look upon it as solemn at all. +It's very disagreeable and humiliating. But it has presented +itself. You have never taken a serious interest in the activities +of my life which of course are its distinction and its value. And +why you should be carried away suddenly by a feeling toward the +mere man I don't understand." + +"Therefore you don't approve," Mrs. Travers commented in an even +tone. "But I assure you, you may safely. My feeling was of the +most conventional nature, exactly as if the whole world were +looking on. After all, we are husband and wife. It's eminently +fitting that I should be concerned about your fate. Even the man +you distrust and dislike so much (the warmest feeling, let me +tell you, that I ever saw you display) even that man found my +conduct perfectly proper. His own word. Proper. So eminently +proper that it altogether silenced his objections." + +Mr. Travers shifted uneasily on his seat. + +"It's my belief, Edith, that if you had been a man you would have +led a most irregular life. You would have been a frank +adventurer. I mean morally. It has been a great grief to me. You +have a scorn in you for the serious side of life, for the ideas +and the ambitions of the social sphere to which you belong." + +He stopped because his wife had clasped again her hands behind +her head and was no longer looking at him. + +"It's perfectly obvious," he began again. "We have been living +amongst most distinguished men and women and your attitude to +them has been always so--so negative! You would never recognize +the importance of achievements, of acquired positions. I don't +remember you ever admiring frankly any political or social +success. I ask myself what after all you could possibly have +expected from life." + +"I could never have expected to hear such a speech from you. As +to what I did expect! . . . I must have been very stupid." + +"No, you are anything but that," declared Mr. Travers, +conscientiously. "It isn't stupidity." He hesitated for a moment. +"It's a kind of wilfulness, I think. I preferred not to think +about this grievous difference in our points of view, which, you +will admit, I could not have possibly foreseen before we. . . ." + +A sort of solemn embarrassment had come over Mr. Travers. Mrs. +Travers, leaning her chin on the palm of her hand, stared at the +bare matchboard side of the hut. + +"Do you charge me with profound girlish duplicity?" she asked, +very softly. + +The inside of the deckhouse was full of stagnant heat perfumed by +a slight scent which seemed to emanate from the loose mass of +Mrs. Travers' hair. Mr. Travers evaded the direct question which +struck him as lacking fineness even to the point of impropriety. + +"I must suppose that I was not in the calm possession of my +insight and judgment in those days," he said. "I --I was not in a +critical state of mind at the time," he admitted further; but +even after going so far he did not look up at his wife and +therefore missed something like the ghost of a smile on Mrs. +Travers' lips. That smile was tinged with scepticism which was +too deep-seated for anything but the faintest expression. +Therefore she said nothing, and Mr. Travers went on as if +thinking aloud: + +"Your conduct was, of course, above reproach; but you made for +yourself a detestable reputation of mental superiority, expressed +ironically. You inspired mistrust in the best people. You were +never popular." + +"I was bored," murmured Mrs. Travers in a reminiscent tone and +with her chin resting in the hollow of her hand. + +Mr. Travers got up from the seaman's chest as unexpectedly as if +he had been stung by a wasp, but, of course, with a much slower +and more solemn motion. + +"The matter with you, Edith, is that at heart you are perfectly +primitive." Mrs. Travers stood up, too, with a supple, leisurely +movement, and raising her hands to her hair turned half away with +a pensive remark: + +"Imperfectly civilized." + +"Imperfectly disciplined," corrected Mr. Travers after a moment +of dreary meditation. + +She let her arms fall and turned her head. + +"No, don't say that," she protested with strange earnestness. "I +am the most severely disciplined person in the world. I am +tempted to say that my discipline has stopped at nothing short of +killing myself. I suppose you can hardly understand what I mean." + +Mr. Travers made a slight grimace at the floor. + +"I shall not try," he said. "It sounds like something that a +barbarian, hating the delicate complexities and the restraints of +a nobler life, might have said. From you it strikes me as wilful +bad taste. . . . I have often wondered at your tastes. You have +always liked extreme opinions, exotic costumes, lawless +characters, romantic personalities--like d'Alcacer . . ." + +"Poor Mr. d'Alcacer," murmured Mrs. Travers. + +"A man without any ideas of duty or usefulness," said Mr. +Travers, acidly. "What are you pitying him for?" + +"Why! For finding himself in this position out of mere +good-nature. He had nothing to expect from joining our voyage, no +advantage for his political ambitions or anything of the kind. I +suppose you asked him on board to break our tete-a-tete which +must have grown wearisome to you." + +"I am never bored," declared Mr. Travers. "D'Alcacer seemed glad +to come. And, being a Spaniard, the horrible waste of time cannot +matter to him in the least." + +"Waste of time!" repeated Mrs. Travers, indignantly. + +"He may yet have to pay for his good nature with his life." + +Mr. Travers could not conceal a movement of anger. + +"Ah! I forgot those assumptions," he said between his clenched +teeth. "He is a mere Spaniard. He takes this farcical conspiracy +with perfect nonchalance. Decayed races have their own +philosophy." + +"He takes it with a dignity of his own." + +"I don't know what you call his dignity. I should call it lack of +self-respect." + +"Why? Because he is quiet and courteous, and reserves his +judgment. And allow me to tell you, Martin, that you are not +taking our troubles very well." + +"You can't expect from me all those foreign affectations. I am +not in the habit of compromising with my feelings." + +Mrs. Travers turned completely round and faced her husband. "You +sulk," she said. . . . Mr. Travers jerked his head back a little +as if to let the word go past.--"I am outraged," he declared. +Mrs. Travers recognized there something like real suffering.--"I +assure you," she said, seriously (for she was accessible to +pity), "I assure you that this strange Lingard has no idea of +your importance. He doesn't know anything of your social and +political position and still less of your great ambitions." Mr. +Travers listened with some attention.--"Couldn't you have +enlightened him?" he asked.--"It would have been no use; his mind +is fixed upon his own position and upon his own sense of power. +He is a man of the lower classes. . . ."--"He is a brute," said +Mr. Travers, obstinately, and for a moment those two looked +straight into each other's eyes.--"Oh," said Mrs. Travers, +slowly, "you are determined not to compromise with your +feelings!" An undertone of scorn crept into her voice. "But +shall I tell you what I think? I think," and she advanced her +head slightly toward the pale, unshaven face that confronted her +dark eyes, "I think that for all your blind scorn you judge the +man well enough to feel that you can indulge your indignation +with perfect safety. Do you hear? With perfect safety!" Directly +she had spoken she regretted these words. Really it was +unreasonable to take Mr. Travers' tricks of character more +passionately on this spot of the Eastern Archipelago full of +obscure plots and warring motives than in the more artificial +atmosphere of the town. After all what she wanted was simply to +save his life, not to make him understand anything. Mr. Travers +opened his mouth and without uttering a word shut it again. His +wife turned toward the looking-glass nailed to the wall. She +heard his voice behind her. + +"Edith, where's the truth in all this?" + +She detected the anguish of a slow mind with an instinctive dread +of obscure places wherein new discoveries can be made. She looked +over her shoulder to say: + +"It's on the surface, I assure you. Altogether on the surface." + +She turned again to the looking-glass where her own face met her +with dark eyes and a fair mist of hair above the smooth forehead; +but her words had produced no soothing effect. + +"But what does it mean?" cried Mr. Travers. "Why doesn't the +fellow apologize? Why are we kept here? Are we being kept here? +Why don't we get away? Why doesn't he take me back on board my +yacht? What does he want from me? How did he procure our release +from these people on shore who he says intended to cut our +throats? Why did they give us up to him instead?" + +Mrs. Travers began to twist her hair on her head. + +"Matters of high policy and of local politics. Conflict of +personal interests, mistrust between the parties, intrigues of +individuals--you ought to know how that sort of thing works. His +diplomacy made use of all that. The first thing to do was not to +liberate you but to get you into his keeping. He is a very great +man here and let me tell you that your safety depends on his +dexterity in the use of his prestige rather than on his power +which he cannot use. If you would let him talk to you I am sure +he would tell you as much as it is possible for him to disclose." + +"I don't want to be told about any of his rascalities. But +haven't you been taken into his confidence?" + +"Completely," admitted Mrs. Travers, peering into the small +looking-glass. + +"What is the influence you brought to bear upon this man? It +looks to me as if our fate were in your hands." + +"Your fate is not in my hands. It is not even in his hands. There +is a moral situation here which must be solved." + +"Ethics of blackmail," commented Mr. Travers with unexpected +sarcasm. It flashed through his wife's mind that perhaps she +didn't know him so well as she had supposed. It was as if the +polished and solemn crust of hard proprieties had cracked +slightly, here and there, under the strain, disclosing the mere +wrongheadedness of a common mortal. But it was only manner that +had cracked a little; the marvellous stupidity of his conceit +remained the same. She thought that this discussion was perfectly +useless, and as she finished putting up her hair she said: "I +think we had better go on deck now." + +"You propose to go out on deck like this?" muttered Mr. Travers +with downcast eyes. + +"Like this? Certainly. It's no longer a novelty. Who is going to +be shocked?" + +Mr. Travers made no reply. What she had said of his attitude was +very true. He sulked at the enormous offensiveness of men, +things, and events; of words and even of glances which he seemed +to feel physically resting on his skin like a pain, like a +degrading contact. He managed not to wince. But he sulked. His +wife continued, "And let me tell you that those clothes are fit +for a princess--I mean they are of the quality, material and +style custom prescribes for the highest in the land, a +far-distant land where I am informed women rule as much as the +men. In fact they were meant to be presented to an actual +princess in due course. They were selected with the greatest care +for that child Immada. Captain Lingard. . . ." + +Mr. Travers made an inarticulate noise partaking of a groan and a +grunt. + +"Well, I must call him by some name and this I thought would be +the least offensive for you to hear. After all, the man exists. +But he is known also on a certain portion of the earth's surface +as King Tom. D'Alcacer is greatly taken by that name. It seems to +him wonderfully well adapted to the man, in its familiarity and +deference. And if you prefer. . . ." + +"I would prefer to hear nothing," said Mr. Travers, distinctly. +"Not a single word. Not even from you, till I am a free agent +again. But words don't touch me. Nothing can touch me; neither +your sinister warnings nor the moods of levity which you think +proper to display before a man whose life, according to you, +hangs on a thread." + +"I never forget it for a moment," said Mrs. Travers. "And I not +only know that it does but I also know the strength of the +thread. It is a wonderful thread. You may say if you like it has +been spun by the same fate which made you what you are." + +Mr. Travers felt awfully offended. He had never heard anybody, +let alone his own self, addressed in such terms. The tone seemed +to question his very quality. He reflected with shocked amazement +that he had lived with that woman for eight years! And he said to +her gloomily: + +"You talk like a pagan." + +It was a very strong condemnation which apparently Mrs. Travers +had failed to hear for she pursued with animation: + +"But really, you can't expect me to meditate on it all the time +or shut myself up here and mourn the circumstances from morning +to night. It would be morbid. Let us go on deck." + +"And you look simply heathenish in this costume," Mr. Travers +went on as though he had not been interrupted, and with an accent +of deliberate disgust. + +Her heart was heavy but everything he said seemed to force the +tone of levity on to her lips. "As long as I don't look like a +guy," she remarked, negligently, and then caught the direction of +his lurid stare which as a matter of fact was fastened on her +bare feet. She checked herself, "Oh, yes, if you prefer it I will +put on my stockings. But you know I must be very careful of them. +It's the only pair I have here. I have washed them this morning +in that bathroom which is built over the stern. They are now +drying over the rail just outside. Perhaps you will be good +enough to pass them to me when you go on deck." + +Mr. Travers spun round and went on deck without a word. As soon +as she was alone Mrs. Travers pressed her hands to her temples, a +gesture of distress which relieved her by its sincerity. The +measured footsteps of two men came to her plainly from the deck, +rhythmic and double with a suggestion of tranquil and friendly +intercourse. She distinguished particularly the footfalls of the +man whose life's orbit was most remote from her own. And yet the +orbits had cut! A few days ago she could not have even conceived +of his existence, and now he was the man whose footsteps, it +seemed to her, her ears could single unerringly in the tramp of a +crowd. It was, indeed, a fabulous thing. In the half light of her +over-heated shelter she let an irresolute, frightened smile pass +off her lips before she, too, went on deck. + + + +II + +An ingeniously constructed framework of light posts and thin +laths occupied the greater part of the deck amidships of the +Emma. The four walls of that airy structure were made of muslin. +It was comparatively lofty. A door-like arrangement of light +battens filled with calico was further protected by a system of +curtains calculated to baffle the pursuit of mosquitoes that +haunted the shores of the lagoon in great singing clouds from +sunset till sunrise. A lot of fine mats covered the deck space +within the transparent shelter devised by Lingard and Jorgenson +to make Mrs. Travers' existence possible during the time when the +fate of the two men, and indeed probably of everybody else on +board the Emma, had to hang in the balance. Very soon Lingard's +unbidden and fatal guests had learned the trick of stepping in +and out of the place quickly. Mr. d'Alcacer performed the feat +without apparent haste, almost nonchalantly, yet as well as +anybody. It was generally conceded that he had never let a +mosquito in together with himself. Mr. Travers dodged in and out +without grace and was obviously much irritated at the necessity. +Mrs. Travers did it in a manner all her own, with marked +cleverness and an unconscious air. There was an improvised table +in there and some wicker armchairs which Jorgenson had produced +from somewhere in the depths of the ship. It was hard to say what +the inside of the Emma did not contain. It was crammed with all +sorts of goods like a general store. That old hulk was the +arsenal and the war-chest of Lingard's political action; she was +stocked with muskets and gunpowder, with bales of longcloth, of +cotton prints, of silks; with bags of rice and currency brass +guns. She contained everything necessary for dealing death and +distributing bribes, to act on the cupidity and upon the fears of +men, to march and to organize, to feed the friends and to combat +the enemies of the cause. She held wealth and power in her +flanks, that grounded ship that would swim no more, without masts +and with the best part of her deck cumbered by the two structures +of thin boards and of transparent muslin. + +Within the latter lived the Europeans, visible in the daytime to +the few Malays on board as if through a white haze. In the +evening the lighting of the hurricane lamps inside turned them +into dark phantoms surrounded by a shining mist, against which +the insect world rushing in its millions out of the forest on the +bank was baffled mysteriously in its assault. Rigidly enclosed by +transparent walls, like captives of an enchanted cobweb, they +moved about, sat, gesticulated, conversed publicly during the +day; and at night when all the lanterns but one were +extinguished, their slumbering shapes covered all over by white +cotton sheets on the camp bedsteads, which were brought in every +evening, conveyed the gruesome suggestion of dead bodies reposing +on stretchers. The food, such as it was, was served within that +glorified mosquito net which everybody called the "Cage" without +any humorous intention. At meal times the party from the yacht +had the company of Lingard who attached to this ordeal a sense of +duty performed at the altar of civility and conciliation. He +could have no conception how much his presence added to the +exasperation of Mr. Travers because Mr. Travers' manner was too +intensely consistent to present any shades. It was determined by +an ineradicable conviction that he was a victim held to ransom on +some incomprehensible terms by an extraordinary and outrageous +bandit. This conviction, strung to the highest pitch, never left +him for a moment, being the object of indignant meditation to his +mind, and even clinging, as it were, to his very body. It lurked +in his eyes, in his gestures, in his ungracious mutters, and in +his sinister silences. The shock to his moral being had ended by +affecting Mr. Travers' physical machine. He was aware of hepatic +pains, suffered from accesses of somnolence and suppressed gusts +of fury which frightened him secretly. His complexion had +acquired a yellow tinge, while his heavy eyes had become +bloodshot because of the smoke of the open wood fires during his +three days' detention inside Belarab's stockade. His eyes had +been always very sensitive to outward conditions. D'Alcacer's +fine black eyes were more enduring and his appearance did not +differ very much from his ordinary appearance on board the yacht. +He had accepted with smiling thanks the offer of a thin blue +flannel tunic from Jorgenson. Those two men were much of the same +build, though of course d'Alcacer, quietly alive and spiritually +watchful, did not resemble Jorgenson, who, without being exactly +macabre, behaved more like an indifferent but restless corpse. +Those two could not be said to have ever conversed together. +Conversation with Jorgenson was an impossible thing. Even Lingard +never attempted the feat. He propounded questions to Jorgenson +much as a magician would interrogate an evoked shade, or gave him +curt directions as one would make use of some marvellous +automaton. And that was apparently the way in which Jorgenson +preferred to be treated. Lingard's real company on board the Emma +was d'Alcacer. D'Alcacer had met Lingard on the easy terms of a +man accustomed all his life to good society in which the very +affectations must be carried on without effort. Whether +affectation, or nature, or inspired discretion, d'Alcacer never +let the slightest curiosity pierce the smoothness of his level, +grave courtesy lightened frequently by slight smiles which often +had not much connection with the words he uttered, except that +somehow they made them sound kindly and as it were tactful. In +their character, however, those words were strictly neutral. + +The only time when Lingard had detected something of a deeper +comprehension in d'Alcacer was the day after the long +negotiations inside Belarab's stockade for the temporary +surrender of the prisoners. That move had been suggested to him, +exactly as Mrs. Travers had told her husband, by the rivalries of +the parties and the state of public opinion in the Settlement +deprived of the presence of the man who, theoretically at least, +was the greatest power and the visible ruler of the Shore of +Refuge. Belarab still lingered at his father's tomb. Whether that +man of the embittered and pacific heart had withdrawn there to +meditate upon the unruliness of mankind and the thankless nature +of his task; or whether he had gone there simply to bathe in a +particularly clear pool which was a feature of the place, give +himself up to the enjoyment of a certain fruit which grew in +profusion there and indulge for a time in a scrupulous +performance of religious exercises, his absence from the +Settlement was a fact of the utmost gravity. It is true that the +prestige of a long-unquestioned rulership and the long-settled +mental habits of the people had caused the captives to be taken +straight to Belarab's stockade as a matter of course. Belarab, at +a distance, could still outweigh the power on the spot of Tengga, +whose secret purposes were no better known, who was jovial, +talkative, outspoken and pugnacious; but who was not a professed +servant of God famed for many charities and a scrupulous +performance of pious practices, and who also had no father who +had achieved a local saintship. But Belarab, with his glamour of +asceticism and melancholy together with a reputation for severity +(for a man so pious would be naturally ruthless), was not on the +spot. The only favourable point in his absence was the fact that +he had taken with him his latest wife, the same lady whom +Jorgenson had mentioned in his letter to Lingard as anxious to +bring about battle, murder, and the looting of the yacht, not +because of inborn wickedness of heart but from a simple desire +for silks, jewels and other objects of personal adornment, quite +natural in a girl so young and elevated to such a high position. +Belarab had selected her to be the companion of his retirement +and Lingard was glad of it. He was not afraid of her influence +over Belarab. He knew his man. No words, no blandishments, no +sulks, scoldings, or whisperings of a favourite could affect +either the resolves or the irresolutions of that Arab whose +action ever seemed to hang in mystic suspense between the +contradictory speculations and judgments disputing the possession +of his will. It was not what Belarab would either suddenly do or +leisurely determine upon that Lingard was afraid of. The danger +was that in his taciturn hesitation, which had something +hopelessly godlike in its remote calmness, the man would do +nothing and leave his white friend face to face with unruly +impulses against which Lingard had no means of action but force +which he dared not use since it would mean the destruction of his +plans and the downfall of his hopes; and worse still would wear +an aspect of treachery to Hassim and Immada, those fugitives whom +he had snatched away from the jaws of death on a night of storm +and had promised to lead back in triumph to their own country he +had seen but once, sleeping unmoved under the wrath and fire of +heaven. + +On the afternoon of the very day he had arrived with her on board +the Emma--to the infinite disgust of Jorgenson-- Lingard held +with Mrs. Travers (after she had had a couple of hours' rest) a +long, fiery, and perplexed conversation. From the nature of the +problem it could not be exhaustive; but toward the end of it they +were both feeling thoroughly exhausted. Mrs. Travers had no +longer to be instructed as to facts and possibilities. She was +aware of them only too well and it was not her part to advise or +argue. She was not called upon to decide or to plead. The +situation was far beyond that. But she was worn out with watching +the passionate conflict within the man who was both so +desperately reckless and so rigidly restrained in the very ardour +of his heart and the greatness of his soul. It was a spectacle +that made her forget the actual questions at issue. This was no +stage play; and yet she had caught herself looking at him with +bated breath as at a great actor on a darkened stage in some +simple and tremendous drama. He extorted from her a response to +the forces that seemed to tear at his single-minded brain, at his +guileless breast. He shook her with his own struggles, he +possessed her with his emotions and imposed his personality as if +its tragedy were the only thing worth considering in this matter. +And yet what had she to do with all those obscure and barbarous +things? Obviously nothing. Unluckily she had been taken into the +confidence of that man's passionate perplexity, a confidence +provoked apparently by nothing but the power of her personality. +She was flattered, and even more, she was touched by it; she was +aware of something that resembled gratitude and provoked a sort +of emotional return as between equals who had secretly recognized +each other's value. Yet at the same time she regretted not having +been left in the dark; as much in the dark as Mr. Travers himself +or d'Alcacer, though as to the latter it was impossible to say +how much precise, unaccountable, intuitive knowledge was buried +under his unruffled manner. + +D'Alcacer was the sort of man whom it would be much easier to +suspect of anything in the world than ignorance--or stupidity. +Naturally he couldn't know anything definite or even guess at the +bare outline of the facts but somehow he must have scented the +situation in those few days of contact with Lingard. He was an +acute and sympathetic observer in all his secret aloofness from +the life of men which was so very different from Jorgenson's +secret divorce from the passions of this earth. Mrs. Travers +would have liked to share with d'Alcacer the burden (for it was a +burden) of Lingard's story. After all, she had not provoked those +confidences, neither had that unexpected adventurer from the sea +laid on her an obligation of secrecy. No, not even by +implication. He had never said to her that she was the ONLY +person whom he wished to know that story. + +No. What he had said was that she was the only person to whom he +COULD tell the tale himself, as if no one else on earth had the +power to draw it from him. That was the sense and nothing more. +Yes, it would have been a relief to tell d'Alcacer. It would have +been a relief to her feeling of being shut off from the world +alone with Lingard as if within the four walls of a romantic +palace and in an exotic atmosphere. Yes, that relief and also +another: that of sharing the responsibility with somebody fit to +understand. Yet she shrank from it, with unaccountable reserve, +as if by talking of Lingard with d'Alcacer she was bound to give +him an insight into herself. It was a vague uneasiness and yet so +persistent that she felt it, too, when she had to approach and +talk to Lingard under d'Alcacer's eyes. Not that Mr. d'Alcacer +would ever dream of staring or even casting glances. But was he +averting his eyes on purpose? That would be even more offensive. + +"I am stupid," whispered Mrs. Travers to herself, with a complete +and reassuring conviction. Yet she waited motionless till the +footsteps of the two men stopped outside the deckhouse, then +separated and died away, before she went out on deck. She came +out on deck some time after her husband. As if in intended +contrast to the conflicts of men a great aspect of serenity lay +upon all visible things. Mr. Travers had gone inside the Cage in +which he really looked like a captive and thoroughly out of +place. D'Alcacer had gone in there, too, but he preserved--or was +it an illusion? --an air of independence. It was not that he put +it on. Like Mr. Travers he sat in a wicker armchair in very much +the same attitude as the other gentleman and also silent; but +there was somewhere a subtle difference which did away with the +notion of captivity. Moreover, d'Alcacer had that peculiar gift +of never looking out of place in any surroundings. Mrs. Travers, +in order to save her European boots for active service, had been +persuaded to use a pair of leather sandals also extracted from +that seaman's chest in the deckhouse. An additional fastening had +been put on them but she could not avoid making a delicate +clatter as she walked on the deck. No part of her costume made +her feel so exotic. It also forced her to alter her usual gait +and move with quick, short steps very much like Immada. + +"I am robbing the girl of her clothes," she had thought to +herself, "besides other things." She knew by this time that a +girl of such high rank would never dream of wearing anything that +had been worn by somebody else. + +At the slight noise of Mrs. Travers' sandals d'Alcacer looked +over the back of his chair. But he turned his head away at once +and Mrs. Travers, leaning her elbow on the rail and resting her +head on the palm of her hand, looked across the calm surface of +the lagoon, idly. + +She was turning her back on the Cage, the fore-part of the deck +and the edge of the nearest forest. That great erection of +enormous solid trunks, dark, rugged columns festooned with +writhing creepers and steeped in gloom, was so close to the bank +that by looking over the side of the ship she could see inverted +in the glassy belt of water its massive and black reflection on +the reflected sky that gave the impression of a clear blue abyss +seen through a transparent film. And when she raised her eyes the +same abysmal immobility seemed to reign over the whole sun-bathed +enlargement of that lagoon which was one of the secret places of +the earth. She felt strongly her isolation. She was so much the +only being of her kind moving within this mystery that even to +herself she looked like an apparition without rights and without +defence and that must end by surrendering to those forces which +seemed to her but the expression of the unconscious genius of the +place. Hers was the most complete loneliness, charged with a +catastrophic tension. It lay about her as though she had been set +apart within a magic circle. It cut off--but it did not protect. +The footsteps that she knew how to distinguish above all others +on that deck were heard suddenly behind her. She did not turn her +head. + +Since that afternoon when the gentlemen, as Lingard called them, +had been brought on board, Mrs. Travers and Lingard had not +exchanged one significant word. + +When Lingard had decided to proceed by way of negotiation she had +asked him on what he based his hope of success; and he had +answered her: "On my luck." What he really depended on was his +prestige; but even if he had been aware of such a word he would +not have used it, since it would have sounded like a boast. And, +besides, he did really believe in his luck. Nobody, either white +or brown, had ever doubted his word and that, of course, gave him +great assurance in entering upon the negotiation. But the +ultimate issue of it would be always a matter of luck. He said so +distinctly to Mrs. Travers at the moment of taking leave of her, +with Jorgenson already waiting for him in the boat that was to +take them across the lagoon to Belarab's stockade. + +Startled by his decision (for it had come suddenly clinched by +the words "I believe I can do it"), Mrs. Travers had dropped her +hand into his strong open palm on which an expert in palmistry +could have distinguished other lines than the line of luck. +Lingard's hand closed on hers with a gentle pressure. She looked +at him, speechless. He waited for a moment, then in an +unconsciously tender voice he said: "Well, wish me luck then." + +She remained silent. And he still holding her hand looked +surprised at her hesitation. It seemed to her that she could not +let him go, and she didn't know what to say till it occurred to +her to make use of the power she knew she had over him. She would +try it again. "I am coming with you," she declared with decision. +"You don't suppose I could remain here in suspense for hours, +perhaps." + +He dropped her hand suddenly as if it had burnt him--"Oh, yes, of +course," he mumbled with an air of confusion. One of the men over +there was her husband! And nothing less could be expected from +such a woman. He had really nothing to say but she thought he +hesitated.--"Do you think my presence would spoil everything? I +assure you I am a lucky person, too, in a way. . . . As lucky as +you, at least," she had added in a murmur and with a smile which +provoked his responsive mutter--"Oh, yes, we are a lucky pair of +people."--"I count myself lucky in having found a man like you to +fight my--our battles," she said, warmly. "Suppose you had not +existed? . . . . You must let me come with you!" For the second +time before her expressed wish to stand by his side he bowed his +head. After all, if things came to the worst, she would be as +safe between him and Jorgenson as left alone on board the Emma +with a few Malay spearmen for all defence. For a moment Lingard +thought of picking up the pistols he had taken out of his belt +preparatory to joining Jorgenson in the boat, thinking it would +be better to go to a big talk completely unarmed. They were lying +on the rail but he didn't pick them up. Four shots didn't matter. +They could not matter if the world of his creation were to go to +pieces. He said nothing of that to Mrs. Travers but busied +himself in giving her the means to alter her personal appearance. +It was then that the sea-chest in the deckhouse was opened for +the first time before the interested Mrs. Travers who had +followed him inside. Lingard handed to her a Malay woman's light +cotton coat with jewelled clasps to put over her European dress. +It covered half of her yachting skirt. Mrs. Travers obeyed him +without comment. He pulled out a long and wide scarf of white +silk embroidered heavily on the edges and ends, and begged her to +put it over her head and arrange the ends so as to muffle her +face, leaving little more than her eyes exposed to view.--"We are +going amongst a lot of Mohammedans," he explained. --"I see. You +want me to look respectable," she jested.--"I assure you, Mrs. +Travers," he protested, earnestly, "that most of the people there +and certainly all the great men have never seen a white woman in +their lives. But perhaps you would like better one of those other +scarves? There are three in there."--"No, I like this one well +enough. They are all very gorgeous. I see that the Princess is to +be sent back to her land with all possible splendour. What a +thoughtful man you are, Captain Lingard. That child will be +touched by your generosity. . . . Will I do like this?" + +"Yes," said Lingard, averting his eyes. Mrs. Travers followed him +into the boat where the Malays stared in silence while Jorgenson, +stiff and angular, gave no sign of life, not even so much as a +movement of the eyes. Lingard settled her in the stern sheets and +sat down by her side. The ardent sunshine devoured all colours. +The boat swam forward on the glare heading for the strip of coral +beach dazzling like a crescent of metal raised to a white heat. +They landed. Gravely, Jorgenson opened above Mrs. Travers' head a +big white cotton parasol and she advanced between the two men, +dazed, as if in a dream and having no other contact with the +earth but through the soles of her feet. Everything was still, +empty, incandescent, and fantastic. Then when the gate of the +stockade was thrown open she perceived an expectant and still +multitude of bronze figures draped in coloured stuffs. They +crowded the patches of shade under the three lofty forest trees +left within the enclosure between the sun-smitten empty spaces of +hard-baked ground. The broad blades of the spears decorated with +crimson tufts of horsehair had a cool gleam under the outspread +boughs. To the left a group of buildings on piles with long +verandahs and immense roofs towered high in the air above the +heads of the crowd, and seemed to float in the glare, looking +much less substantial than their heavy shadows. Lingard, pointing +to one of the smallest, said in an undertone, "I lived there for +a fortnight when I first came to see Belarab"; and Mrs. Travers +felt more than ever as if walking in a dream when she perceived +beyond the rails of its verandah and visible from head to foot +two figures in an armour of chain mail with pointed steel helmets +crested with white and black feathers and guarding the closed +door. A high bench draped in turkey cloth stood in an open space +of the great audience shed. Lingard led her up to it, Jorgenson +on her other side closed the parasol calmly, and when she sat +down between them the whole throng before her eyes sank to the +ground with one accord disclosing in the distance of the +courtyard a lonely figure leaning against the smooth trunk of a +tree. A white cloth was fastened round his head by a yellow cord. +Its pointed ends fell on his shoulders, framing a thin dark face +with large eyes, a silk cloak striped black and white fell to his +feet, and in the distance he looked aloof and mysterious in his +erect and careless attitude suggesting assurance and power. + +Lingard, bending slightly, whispered into Mrs. Travers' ear that +that man, apart and dominating the scene, was Daman, the supreme +leader of the Illanuns, the one who had ordered the capture of +those gentlemen in order perhaps to force his hand. The two +barbarous, half-naked figures covered with ornaments and charms, +squatting at his feet with their heads enfolded in crimson and +gold handkerchiefs and with straight swords lying across their +knees, were the Pangerans who carried out the order, and had +brought the captives into the lagoon. But the two men in chain +armour on watch outside the door of the small house were +Belarab's two particular body-guards, who got themselves up in +that way only on very great occasions. They were the outward and +visible sign that the prisoners were in Belarab's keeping, and +this was good, so far. The pity was that the Great Chief himself +was not there. Then Lingard assumed a formal pose and Mrs. +Travers stared into the great courtyard and with rows and rows of +faces ranged on the ground at her feet felt a little giddy for a +moment. + +Every movement had died in the crowd. Even the eyes were still +under the variegated mass of coloured headkerchiefs: while beyond +the open gate a noble palm tree looked intensely black against +the glitter of the lagoon and the pale incandescence of the sky. +Mrs. Travers gazing that way wondered at the absence of Hassim +and Immada. But the girl might have been somewhere within one of +the houses with the ladies of Belarab's stockade. Then suddenly +Mrs. Travers became aware that another bench had been brought out +and was already occupied by five men dressed in gorgeous silks, +and embroidered velvets, round-faced and grave. Their hands +reposed on their knees; but one amongst them clad in a white robe +and with a large nearly black turban on his head leaned forward a +little with his chin in his hand. His cheeks were sunken and his +eyes remained fixed on the ground as if to avoid looking at the +infidel woman. + +She became aware suddenly of a soft murmur, and glancing at +Lingard she saw him in an attitude of impassive attention. The +momentous negotiations had begun, and it went on like this in low +undertones with long pauses and in the immobility of all the +attendants squatting on the ground, with the distant figure of +Daman far off in the shade towering over all the assembly. But in +him, too, Mrs. Travers could not detect the slightest movement +while the slightly modulated murmurs went on enveloping her in a +feeling of peace. + +The fact that she couldn't understand anything of what was said +soothed her apprehensions. Sometimes a silence fell and Lingard +bending toward her would whisper, "It isn't so easy," and the +stillness would be so perfect that she would hear the flutter of +a pigeon's wing somewhere high up in the great overshadowing +trees. And suddenly one of the men before her without moving a +limb would begin another speech rendered more mysterious still by +the total absence of action or play of feature. Only the +watchfulness of the eyes which showed that the speaker was not +communing with himself made it clear that this was not a spoken +meditation but a flow of argument directed to Lingard who now and +then uttered a few words either with a grave or a smiling +expression. They were always followed by murmurs which seemed +mostly to her to convey assent; and then a reflective silence +would reign again and the immobility of the crowd would appear +more perfect than before. + +When Lingard whispered to her that it was now his turn to make a +speech Mrs. Travers expected him to get up and assert himself by +some commanding gesture. But he did not. He remained seated, only +his voice had a vibrating quality though he obviously tried to +restrain it, and it travelled masterfully far into the silence. +He spoke for a long time while the sun climbing the unstained sky +shifted the diminished shadows of the trees, pouring on the heads +of men its heat through the thick and motionless foliage. +Whenever murmurs arose he would stop and glancing fearlessly at +the assembly, wait till they subsided. Once or twice, they rose +to a loud hum and Mrs. Travers could hear on the other side of +her Jorgenson muttering something in his moustache. Beyond the +rows of heads Daman under the tree had folded his arms on his +breast. The edge of the white cloth concealed his forehead and at +his feet the two Illanun chiefs, half naked and bedecked with +charms and ornaments of bright feathers, of shells, with +necklaces of teeth, claws, and shining beads, remained +cross-legged with their swords across their knees like two bronze +idols. Even the plumes of their head-dresses stirred not. + +"Sudah! It is finished!" A movement passed along all the heads, +the seated bodies swayed to and fro. Lingard had ceased speaking. +He remained seated for a moment looking his audience all over and +when he stood up together with Mrs. Travers and Jorgenson the +whole assembly rose from the ground together and lost its ordered +formation. Some of Belarab's retainers, young broad-faced +fellows, wearing a sort of uniform of check-patterned sarongs, +black silk jackets and crimson skull-caps set at a rakish angle, +swaggered through the broken groups and ranged themselves in two +rows before the motionless Daman and his Illanun chiefs in +martial array. The members of the council who had left their +bench approached the white people with gentle smiles and +deferential movements of the hands. Their bearing was faintly +propitiatory; only the man in the big turban remained fanatically +aloof, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. + +"I have done it," murmured Lingard to Mrs. Travers. --"Was it +very difficult?" she asked.--"No," he said, conscious in his +heart that he had strained to the fullest extent the prestige of +his good name and that habit of deference to his slightest wish +established by the glamour of his wealth and the fear of his +personality in this great talk which after all had done nothing +except put off the decisive hour. He offered Mrs. Travers his arm +ready to lead her away, but at the last moment did not move. + +With an authoritative gesture Daman had parted the ranks of +Belarab's young followers with the red skullcaps and was seen +advancing toward the whites striking into an astonished silence +all the scattered groups in the courtyard. But the broken ranks +had closed behind him. The Illanun chiefs, for all their +truculent aspect, were much too prudent to attempt to move. They +had not needed for that the faint warning murmur from Daman. He +advanced alone. The plain hilt of a sword protruded from the open +edges of his cloak. The parted edges disclosed also the butts of +two flintlock pistols. The Koran in a velvet case hung on his +breast by a red cord of silk. He was pious, magnificent, and +warlike, with calm movements and a straight glance from under the +hem of the simple piece of linen covering his head. He carried +himself rigidly and his bearing had a sort of solemn modesty. +Lingard said hurriedly to Mrs. Travers that the man had met white +people before and that, should he attempt to shake hands with +her, she ought to offer her own covered with the end of her +scarf.--"Why?" she asked. "Propriety?"--"Yes, it will be better," +said Lingard and the next moment Mrs. Travers felt her enveloped +hand pressed gently by slender dark fingers and felt extremely +Oriental herself when, with her face muffled to the eyes, she +encountered the lustrous black stare of the sea-robbers' leader. +It was only for an instant, because Daman turned away at once to +shake hands with Lingard. In the straight, ample folds of his +robes he looked very slender facing the robust white man. + +"Great is your power," he said, in a pleasant voice. "The white +men are going to be delivered to you." + +"Yes, they pass into my keeping," said Lingard, returning the +other's bright smile but otherwise looking grim enough with the +frown which had settled on his forehead at Daman's approach. He +glanced over his shoulder at a group of spearmen escorting the +two captives who had come down the steps from the hut. At the +sight of Daman barring as it were Lingard's way they had stopped +at some distance and had closed round the two white men. Daman +also glanced dispassionately that way. + +"They were my guests," he murmured. "Please God I shall come soon +to ask you for them . . . as a friend," he added after a slight +pause. + +"And please God you will not go away empty handed," said Lingard, +smoothing his brow. "After all you and I were not meant to meet +only to quarrel. Would you have preferred to see them pass into +Tengga's keeping?" + +"Tengga is fat and full of wiles," said Daman, disdainfully, "a +mere shopkeeper smitten by a desire to be a chief. He is nothing. +But you and I are men that have real power. Yet there is a truth +that you and I can confess to each other. Men's hearts grow +quickly discontented. Listen. The leaders of men are carried +forward in the hands of their followers; and common men's minds +are unsteady, their desires changeable, and their thoughts not to +be trusted. You are a great chief they say. Do not forget that I +am a chief, too, and a leader of armed men." + +"I have heard of you, too," said Lingard in a composed voice. + +Daman had cast his eyes down. Suddenly he opened them very wide +with an effect that startled Mrs. Travers.--"Yes. But do you +see?" Mrs. Travers, her hand resting lightly on Lingard's arm, +had the sensation of acting in a gorgeously got up play on the +brilliantly lighted stage of an exotic opera whose accompaniment +was not music but the varied strains of the all-pervading +silence.--"Yes, I see," Lingard replied with a surprisingly +confidential intonation. "But power, too, is in the hands of a +great leader." + +Mrs. Travers watched the faint movements of Daman's nostrils as +though the man were suffering from some powerful emotion, while +under her fingers Lingard's forearm in its white sleeve was as +steady as a limb of marble. Without looking at him she seemed to +feel that with one movement he could crush that nervous figure in +which lived the breath of the great desert haunted by his nomad, +camel-riding ancestors.--"Power is in the hand of God," he said, +all animation dying out of his face, and paused to wait for +Lingard's "Very true," then continued with a fine smile, "but He +apportions it according to His will for His own purposes, even to +those that are not of the Faith." + +"Such being the will of God you should harbour no bitterness +against them in your heart." + +The low exclamation, "Against those!" and a slight dismissing +gesture of a meagre dark hand out of the folds of the cloak were +almost understandable to Mrs. Travers in the perfection of their +melancholy contempt, and gave Lingard a further insight into the +character of the ally secured to him by the diplomacy of Belarab. +He was only half reassured by this assumption of superior +detachment. He trusted to the man's self-interest more; for Daman +no doubt looked to the reconquered kingdom for the reward of +dignity and ease. His father and grandfather (the men of whom +Jorgenson had written as having been hanged for an example twelve +years before) had been friends of Sultans, advisers of Rulers, +wealthy financiers of the great raiding expeditions of the past. +It was hatred that had turned Daman into a self-made outcast, +till Belarab's diplomacy had drawn him out from some obscure and +uneasy retreat. + +In a few words Lingard assured Daman of the complete safety of +his followers as long as they themselves made no attempt to get +possession of the stranded yacht. Lingard understood very well +that the capture of Travers and d'Alcacer was the result of a +sudden fear, a move directed by Daman to secure his own safety. +The sight of the stranded yacht shook his confidence completely. +It was as if the secrets of the place had been betrayed. After +all, it was perhaps a great folly to trust any white man, no +matter how much he seemed estranged from his own people. Daman +felt he might have been the victim of a plot. Lingard's brig +appeared to him a formidable engine of war. He did not know what +to think and the motive for getting hold of the two white men was +really the wish to secure hostages. Distrusting the fierce +impulses of his followers he had hastened to put them into +Belarab's keeping. But everything in the Settlement seemed to him +suspicious: Belarab's absence, Jorgenson's refusal to make over +at once the promised supply of arms and ammunition. And now that +white man had by the power of his speech got them away from +Belarab's people. So much influence filled Daman with wonder and +awe. A recluse for many years in the most obscure corner of the +Archipelago he felt himself surrounded by intrigues. But the +alliance was a great thing, too. He did not want to quarrel. He +was quite willing for the time being to accept Lingard's +assurance that no harm should befall his people encamped on the +sandbanks. Attentive and slight, he seemed to let Lingard's +deliberate words sink into him. The force of that unarmed big man +seemed overwhelming. He bowed his head slowly. + +"Allah is our refuge," he murmured, accepting the inevitable. + +He delighted Mrs. Travers not as a living being but like a clever +sketch in colours, a vivid rendering of an artist's vision of +some soul, delicate and fierce. His bright half-smile was +extraordinary, sharp like clear steel, painfully penetrating. +Glancing right and left Mrs. Travers saw the whole courtyard +smitten by the desolating fury of sunshine and peopled with +shadows, their forms and colours fading in the violence of the +light. The very brown tones of roof and wall dazzled the eye. +Then Daman stepped aside. He was no longer smiling and Mrs. +Travers advanced with her hand on Lingard's arm through a heat so +potent that it seemed to have a taste, a feel, a smell of its +own. She moved on as if floating in it with Lingard's support. + +"Where are they?" she asked. + +"They are following us all right," he answered. Lingard was so +certain that the prisoners would be delivered to him on the beach +that he never glanced back till, after reaching the boat, he and +Mrs. Travers turned about. + +The group of spearmen parted right and left, and Mr. Travers and +d'Alcacer walked forward alone looking unreal and odd like their +own day-ghosts. Mr. Travers gave no sign of being aware of his +wife's presence. It was certainly a shock to him. But d'Alcacer +advanced smiling, as if the beach were a drawing. room. + +With a very few paddlers the heavy old European-built boat moved +slowly over the water that seemed as pale and blazing as the sky +above. Jorgenson had perched himself in the bow. The other four +white people sat in the stern sheets, the ex-prisoners side by +side in the middle. Lingard spoke suddenly. + +"I want you both to understand that the trouble is not over yet. +Nothing is finished. You are out on my bare word." + +While Lingard was speaking Mr. Travers turned his face away but +d'Alcacer listened courteously. Not another word was spoken for +the rest of the way. The two gentlemen went up the ship's side +first. Lingard remained to help Mrs. Travers at the foot of the +ladder. She pressed his hand strongly and looking down at his +upturned face: + +"This was a wonderful success," she said. + +For a time the character of his fascinated gaze did not change. +It was as if she had said nothing. Then he whispered, admiringly, +"You understand everything." + +She moved her eyes away and had to disengage her hand to which he +clung for a moment, giddy, like a man falling out of the world. + + + +III + +Mrs. Travers, acutely aware of Lingard behind her, remained +gazing over the lagoon. After a time he stepped forward and +placed himself beside her close to the rail. She went on staring +at the sheet of water turned to deep purple under the sunset sky. + +"Why have you been avoiding me since we came back from the +stockade?" she asked in a deadened voice. + +"There is nothing to tell you till Rajah Hassim and his sister +Immada return with some news," Lingard answered in the same tone. +"Has my friend succeeded? Will Belarab listen to any arguments? +Will he consent to come out of his shell? Is he on his way back? +I wish I knew! . . . Not a whisper comes from there! He may have +started two days ago and he may be now near the outskirts of the +Settlement. Or he may have gone into camp half way down, from +some whim or other; or he may be already arrived for all I know. +We should not have seen him. The road from the hills does not +lead along the beach." + +He snatched nervously at the long glass and directed it at the +dark stockade. The sun had sunk behind the forests leaving the +contour of the tree-tops outlined by a thread of gold under a +band of delicate green lying across the lower sky. Higher up a +faint crimson glow faded into the darkened blue overhead. The +shades of the evening deepened over the lagoon, clung to the +sides of the Emma and to the forms of the further shore. Lingard +laid the glass down. + +"Mr. d'Alcacer, too, seems to have been avoiding me," said Mrs. +Travers. "You are on very good terms with him, Captain Lingard." + +"He is a very pleasant man," murmured Lingard, absently. "But he +says funny things sometimes. He inquired the other day if there +were any playing cards on board, and when I asked him if he liked +card-playing, just for something to say, he told me with that +queer smile of his that he had read a story of some people +condemned to death who passed the time before execution playing +card games with their guards." + +"And what did you say?" + +"I told him that there were probably cards on board +somewhere--Jorgenson would know. Then I asked him whether he +looked on me as a gaoler. He was quite startled and sorry for +what he said." + +"It wasn't very kind of you, Captain Lingard." + +"It slipped out awkwardly and we made it up with a laugh." + +Mrs. Travers leaned her elbows on the rail and put her head into +her hands. Every attitude of that woman surprised Lingard by its +enchanting effect upon himself. He sighed, and the silence lasted +for a long while. + +"I wish I had understood every word that was said that morning." + +"That morning," repeated Lingard. "What morning do you mean?" + +"I mean the morning when I walked out of Belarab's stockade on +your arm, Captain Lingard, at the head of the procession. It +seemed to me that I was walking on a splendid stage in a scene +from an opera, in a gorgeous show fit to make an audience hold +its breath. You can't possibly guess how unreal all this seemed, +and how artificial I felt myself. An opera, you know. . . ." + +"I know. I was a gold digger at one time. Some of us used to come +down to Melbourne with our pockets full of money. I daresay it +was poor enough to what you must have seen, but once I went to a +show like that. It was a story acted to music. All the people +went singing through it right to the very end." + +"How it must have jarred on your sense of reality," said Mrs. +Travers, still not looking at him. "You don't remember the name +of the opera?" + +"No. I never troubled my head about it. We --our lot never did." + +"I won't ask you what the story was like. It must have appeared +to you like the very defiance of all truth. Would real people go +singing through their life anywhere except in a fairy tale?" + +"These people didn't always sing for joy," said Lingard, simply. +"I don't know much about fairy tales." + +"They are mostly about princesses," murmured Mrs. Travers. + +Lingard didn't quite hear. He bent his ear for a moment but she +wasn't looking at him and he didn't ask her to repeat her remark. +"Fairy tales are for children, I believe," he said. "But that +story with music I am telling you of, Mrs. Travers, was not a +tale for children. I assure you that of the few shows I have seen +that one was the most real to me. More real than anything in +life." + +Mrs. Travers, remembering the fatal inanity of most opera +librettos, was touched by these words as if there had been +something pathetic in this readiness of response; as if she had +heard a starved man talking of the delight of a crust of dry +bread. "I suppose you forgot yourself in that story, whatever it +was," she remarked in a detached tone. + +"Yes, it carried me away. But I suppose you know the feeling." + +"No. I never knew anything of the kind, not even when I was a +chit of a girl." Lingard seemed to accept this statement as an +assertion of superiority. He inclined his head slightly. +Moreover, she might have said what she liked. What pleased him +most was her not looking at him; for it enabled him to +contemplate with perfect freedom the curve of her cheek, her +small ear half hidden by the clear mesh of fine hair, the +fascination of her uncovered neck. And her whole person was an +impossible, an amazing and solid marvel which somehow was not so +much convincing to the eye as to something within him that was +apparently independent of his senses. Not even for a moment did +he think of her as remote. Untouchable--possibly! But remote--no. +Whether consciously or unconsciously he took her spiritually for +granted. It was materially that she was a wonder of the sort that +is at the same time familiar and sacred. + +"No," Mrs. Travers began again, abruptly. "I never forgot myself +in a story. It was not in me. I have not even been able to forget +myself on that morning on shore which was part of my own story." + +"You carried yourself first rate," said Lingard, smiling at the +nape of her neck, her ear, the film of escaped hair, the +modelling of the corner of her eye. He could see the flutter of +the dark eyelashes: and the delicate flush on her cheek had +rather the effect of scent than of colour. + +"You approved of my behaviour." + +"Just right, I tell you. My word, weren't they all struck of a +heap when they made out what you were." + +"I ought to feel flattered. I will confess to you that I felt +only half disguised and was half angry and wholly uncomfortable. +What helped me, I suppose, was that I wanted to please. . . ." + +"I don't mean to say that they were exactly pleased," broke in +Lingard, conscientiously. "They were startled more." + +"I wanted to please you," dropped Mrs. Travers, negligently. A +faint, hoarse, and impatient call of a bird was heard from the +woods as if calling to the oncoming night. Lingard's face grew +hot in the deepening dusk. The delicate lemon yellow and ethereal +green tints had vanished from the sky and the red glow darkened +menacingly. The sun had set behind the black pall of the forest, +no longer edged with a line of gold. + +Yes, I was absurdly self-conscious," continued Mrs. Travers in a +conversational tone. "And it was the effect of these clothes that +you made me put on over some of my European--I almost said +disguise; because you know in the present more perfect costume I +feel curiously at home; and yet I can't say that these things +really fit me. The sleeves of this silk under-jacket are rather +tight. My shoulders feel bound, too, and as to the sarong it is +scandalously short. According to rule it should have been long +enough to fall over my feet. But I like freedom of movement. I +have had very little of what I liked in life." + +"I can hardly believe that," said Lingard. "If it wasn't for your +saying so. . . ." + +"I wouldn't say so to everybody," she said, turning her head for +a moment to Lingard and turning it away again to the dusk which +seemed to come floating over the black lagoon. Far away in its +depth a couple of feeble lights twinkled; it was impossible to +say whether on the shore or on the edge of the more distant +forest. Overhead the stars were beginning to come out, but faint +yet, as if too remote to be reflected in the lagoon. Only to the +west a setting planet shone through the red fog of the sunset +glow. "It was supposed not to be good for me to have much freedom +of action. So at least I was told. But I have a suspicion that it +was only unpleasing to other people." + +"I should have thought," began Lingard, then hesitated and +stopped. It seemed to him inconceivable that everybody should not +have loved to make that woman happy. And he was impressed by the +bitterness of her tone. Mrs. Travers did not seem curious to know +what he wanted to say and after a time she added, "I don't mean +only when I was a child. I don't remember that very well. I +daresay I was very objectionable as a child." + +Lingard tried to imagine her as a child. The idea was novel to +him. Her perfection seemed to have come into the world complete, +mature, and without any hesitation or weakness. He had nothing in +his experience that could help him to imagine a child of that +class. The children he knew played about the village street and +ran on the beach. He had been one of them. He had seen other +children, of course, since, but he had not been in touch with +them except visually and they had not been English children. Her +childhood, like his own, had been passed in England, and that +very fact made it almost impossible for him to imagine it. He +could not even tell whether it was in town or in the country, or +whether as a child she had even seen the sea. And how could a +child of that kind be objectionable? But he remembered that a +child disapproved of could be very unhappy, and he said: + +"I am sorry." + +Mrs. Travers laughed a little. Within the muslin cage forms had +turned to blurred shadows. Amongst them the form of d'Alcacer +arose and moved. The systematic or else the morbid dumbness of +Mr. Travers bored and exasperated him, though, as a matter of +fact, that gentleman's speeches had never had the power either to +entertain or to soothe his mind. + +"It's very nice of you. You have a great capacity for sympathy, +but after all I am not certain on which side your sympathies lie. +With me, or those much-tried people," said Mrs. Travers. + +"With the child," said Lingard, disregarding the bantering tone. +"A child can have a very bad time of it all to itself." + +"What can you know of it?" she asked. + +"I have my own feelings," he answered in some surprise. + +Mrs. Travers, with her back to him, was covered with confusion. +Neither could she depict to herself his childhood as if he, too, +had come into the world in the fullness of his strength and his +purpose. She discovered a certain naiveness in herself and +laughed a little. He made no sound. + +"Don't be angry," she said. "I wouldn't dream of laughing at your +feelings. Indeed your feelings are the most serious thing that +ever came in my way. I couldn't help laughing at myself--at a +funny discovery I made." + +"In the days of your childhood?" she heard Lingard's deep voice +asking after a pause. + +"Oh, no. Ages afterward. No child could have made that discovery. +Do you know the greatest difference there is between us? It is +this: That I have been living since my childhood in front of a +show and that I never have been taken in for a moment by its +tinsel and its noise or by anything that went on on the stage. Do +you understand what I mean, Captain Lingard?" + +There was a moment of silence. "What does it matter? We are no +children now." There was an infinite gentleness in Lingard's deep +tones. "But if you have been unhappy then don't tell me that it +has not been made up to you since. Surely you have only to make a +sign. A woman like you." + +"You think I could frighten the whole world on to its knees?" + +"No, not frighten." The suggestion of a laugh in the deadened +voice passed off in a catch of the breath. Then he was heard +beginning soberly: "Your husband. . . ." He hesitated a little +and she took the opportunity to say coldly: + +"His name is Mr. Travers." + +Lingard didn't know how to take it. He imagined himself to have +been guilty of some sort of presumption. But how on earth was he +to call the man? After all he was her husband. That idea was +disagreeable to him because the man was also inimical in a +particularly unreasonable and galling manner. At the same time he +was aware that he didn't care a bit for his enmity and had an +idea that he would not have cared for his friendship either. And +suddenly he felt very much annoyed. + +"Yes. That's the man I mean," he said in a contemptuous tone. "I +don't particularly like the name and I am sure I don't want to +talk about him more than I can help. If he hadn't been your +husband I wouldn't have put up with his manners for an hour. Do +you know what would have happened to him if he hadn't been your +husband?" + +"No," said Mrs. Travers. "Do you, Captain Lingard?" + +"Not exactly," he admitted. "Something he wouldn't have liked, +you may be sure." + +"While of course he likes this very much," she observed. Lingard +gave an abrupt laugh. + +"I don't think it's in my power to do anything that he would +like," he said in a serious tone. "Forgive me my frankness, Mrs. +Travers, but he makes it very difficult sometimes for me to keep +civil. Whatever I have had to put up with in life I have never +had to put up with contempt." + +"I quite believe that," said Mrs. Travers. "Don't your friends +call you King Tom?" + +"Nobody that I care for. I have no friends. Oh, yes, they call me +that . ." + +"You have no friends?" + +"Not I," he said with decision. "A man like me has no chums." + +"It's quite possible," murmured Mrs. Travers to herself. + +"No, not even Jorgenson. Old crazy Jorgenson. He calls me King +Tom, too. You see what that's worth." + +"Yes, I see. Or rather I have heard. That poor man has no tone, +and so much depends on that. Now suppose I were to call you King +Tom now and then between ourselves," Mrs. Travers' voice +proposed, distantly tentative in the night that invested her +person with a colourless vagueness of form. + +She waited in the stillness, her elbows on the rail and her face +in her hands as if she had already forgotten what she had said. +She heard at her elbow the deep murmur of: + +"Let's hear you say it." + +She never moved the least bit. The sombre lagoon sparkled faintly +with the reflection of the stars. + +"Oh, yes, I will let you hear it," she said into the starlit +space in a voice of unaccented gentleness which changed subtly as +she went on. "I hope you will never regret that you came out of +your friendless mystery to speak to me, King Tom. How many days +ago it was! And here is another day gone. Tell me how many more +of them there must be? Of these blinding days and nights without +a sound." + +"Be patient," he murmured. "Don't ask me for the impossible." + +"How do you or I know what is possible?" she whispered with a +strange scorn. "You wouldn't dare guess. But I tell you that +every day that passes is more impossible to me than the day +before." + +The passion of that whisper went like a stab into his breast. +"What am I to tell you?" he murmured, as if with despair. +"Remember that every sunset makes it a day less. Do you think I +want you here?" + +A bitter little laugh floated out into the starlight. Mrs. +Travers heard Lingard move suddenly away from her side. She +didn't change her pose by a hair's breadth. Presently she heard +d'Alcacer coming out of the Cage. His cultivated voice asked half +playfully: + +"Have you had a satisfactory conversation? May I be told +something of it?" + +"Mr. d'Alcacer, you are curious." + +"Well, in our position, I confess. . . . You are our only refuge, +remember." + +"You want to know what we were talking about," said Mrs. Travers, +altering slowly her position so as to confront d'Alcacer whose +face was almost undistinguishable. "Oh, well, then, we talked +about opera, the realities and illusions of the stage, of +dresses, of people's names, and things of that sort." + +"Nothing of importance," he said courteously. Mrs. Travers moved +forward and he stepped to one side. Inside the Cage two Malay +hands were hanging round lanterns, the light of which fell on Mr. +Travers' bowed head as he sat in his chair. + +When they were all assembled for the evening meal Jorgenson +strolled up from nowhere in particular as his habit was, and +speaking through the muslin announced that Captain Lingard begged +to be excused from joining the company that evening. Then he +strolled away. From that moment till they got up from the table +and the camp bedsteads were brought in not twenty words passed +between the members of the party within the net. The strangeness +of their situation made all attempts to exchange ideas very +arduous; and apart from that each had thoughts which it was +distinctly useless to communicate to the others. Mr. Travers had +abandoned himself to his sense of injury. He did not so much +brood as rage inwardly in a dull, dispirited way. The +impossibility of asserting himself in any manner galled his very +soul. D'Alcacer was extremely puzzled. Detached in a sense from +the life of men perhaps as much even as Jorgenson himself, he +took yet a reasonable interest in the course of events and had +not lost all his sense of self-preservation. Without being able +to appreciate the exact values of the situation he was not one of +those men who are ever completely in the dark in any given set of +circumstances. Without being humorous he was a good-humoured man. +His habitual, gentle smile was a true expression. More of a +European than of a Spaniard he had that truly aristocratic nature +which is inclined to credit every honest man with something of +its own nobility and in its judgment is altogether independent of +class feeling. He believed Lingard to be an honest man and he +never troubled his head to classify him, except in the sense that +he found him an interesting character. He had a sort of esteem +for the outward personality and the bearing of that seaman. He +found in him also the distinction of being nothing of a type. He +was a specimen to be judged only by its own worth. With his +natural gift of insight d'Alcacer told himself that many overseas +adventurers of history were probably less worthy because +obviously they must have been less simple. He didn't, however, +impart those thoughts formally to Mrs. Travers. In fact he +avoided discussing Lingard with Mrs. Travers who, he thought, was +quite intelligent enough to appreciate the exact shade of his +attitude. If that shade was fine, Mrs. Travers was fine, too; and +there was no need to discuss the colours of this adventure. +Moreover, she herself seemed to avoid all direct discussion of +the Lingard element in their fate. D'Alcacer was fine enough to +be aware that those two seemed to understand each other in a way +that was not obvious even to themselves. Whenever he saw them +together he was always much tempted to observe them. And he +yielded to the temptation. The fact of one's life depending on +the phases of an obscure action authorizes a certain latitude of +behaviour. He had seen them together repeatedly, communing openly +or apart, and there was in their way of joining each other, in +their poses and their ways of separating, something special and +characteristic and pertaining to themselves only, as if they had +been made for each other. + +What he couldn't understand was why Mrs. Travers should have put +off his natural curiosity as to her latest conference with the +Man of Fate by an incredible statement as to the nature of the +conversation. Talk about dresses, opera, people's names. He +couldn't take this seriously. She might have invented, he +thought, something more plausible; or simply have told him that +this was not for him to know. She ought to have known that he +would not have been offended. Couldn't she have seen already that +he accepted the complexion of mystery in her relation to that man +completely, unquestionably; as though it had been something +preordained from the very beginning of things? But he was not +annoyed with Mrs. Travers. After all it might have been true. She +would talk exactly as she liked, and even incredibly, if it so +pleased her, and make the man hang on her lips. And likewise she +was capable of making the man talk about anything by a power of +inspiration for reasons simple or perverse. Opera! Dresses! +Yes--about Shakespeare and the musical glasses! For a mere whim +or for the deepest purpose. Women worthy of the name were like +that. They were very wonderful. They rose to the occasion and +sometimes above the occasion when things were bound to occur that +would be comic or tragic (as it happened) but generally charged +with trouble even to innocent beholders. D'Alcacer thought these +thoughts without bitterness and even without irony. With his +half-secret social reputation as a man of one great passion in a +world of mere intrigues he liked all women. He liked them in +their sentiment and in their hardness, in the tragic character of +their foolish or clever impulses, at which he looked with a sort +of tender seriousness. + +He didn't take a favourable view of the position but he +considered Mrs. Travers' statement about operas and dresses as a +warning to keep off the subject. For this reason he remained +silent through the meal. + +When the bustle of clearing away the table was over he strolled +toward Mrs. Travers and remarked very quietly: + +"I think that in keeping away from us this evening the Man of +Fate was well inspired. We dined like a lot of Carthusian monks." + +"You allude to our silence?" + +"It was most scrupulous. If we had taken an eternal vow we +couldn't have kept it better." + +"Did you feel bored?" + +"Pas du tout," d'Alcacer assured her with whimsical gravity. "I +felt nothing. I sat in a state of blessed vacuity. I believe I +was the happiest of us three. Unless you, too, Mrs. Travers. . . +." + +"It's absolutely no use your fishing for my thoughts, Mr. +d'Alcacer. If I were to let you see them you would be appalled." + +"Thoughts really are but a shape of feelings. Let me congratulate +you on the impassive mask you can put on those horrors you say +you nurse in your breast. It was impossible to tell anything by +your face." + +"You will always say flattering things." + +"Madame, my flatteries come from the very bottom of my heart. I +have given up long ago all desire to please. And I was not trying +to get at your thoughts. Whatever else you may expect from me you +may count on my absolute respect for your privacy. But I suppose +with a mask such as you can make for yourself you really don't +care. The Man of Fate, I noticed, is not nearly as good at it as +you are." + +"What a pretentious name. Do you call him by it to his face, Mr. +d'Alcacer?" + +"No, I haven't the cheek," confessed d'Alcacer, equably. "And, +besides, it's too momentous for daily use. And he is so simple +that he might mistake it for a joke and nothing could be further +from my thoughts. Mrs. Travers, I will confess to you that I +don't feel jocular in the least. But what can he know about +people of our sort? And when I reflect how little people of our +sort can know of such a man I am quite content to address him as +Captain Lingard. It's common and soothing and most respectable +and satisfactory; for Captain is the most empty of all titles. +What is a Captain? Anybody can be a Captain; and for Lingard it's +a name like any other. Whereas what he deserves is something +special, significant, and expressive, that would match his +person, his simple and romantic person." + +He perceived that Mrs. Travers was looking at him intently. They +hastened to turn their eyes away from each other. + +"He would like your appreciation," Mrs. Travers let drop +negligently. + +"I am afraid he would despise it." + +"Despise it! Why, that sort of thing is the very breath of his +nostrils." + +"You seem to understand him, Mrs. Travers. Women have a singular +capacity for understanding. I mean subjects that interest them; +because when their imagination is stimulated they are not afraid +of letting it go. A man is more mistrustful of himself, but women +are born much more reckless. They push on and on under the +protection of secrecy and silence, and the greater the obscurity +of what they wish to explore the greater their courage." + +"Do you mean seriously to tell me that you consider me a creature +of darkness?" + +"I spoke in general," remonstrated d'Alcacer. "Anything else +would have been an impertinence. Yes, obscurity is women's best +friend. Their daring loves it; but a sudden flash of light +disconcerts them. Generally speaking, if they don't get exactly +at the truth they always manage to come pretty near to it." + +Mrs. Travers had listened with silent attention and she allowed +the silence to continue for some time after d'Alcacer had ceased. +When she spoke it was to say in an unconcerned tone that as to +this subject she had had special opportunities. Her +self-possessed interlocutor managed to repress a movement of real +curiosity under an assumption of conventional interest. "Indeed," +he exclaimed, politely. "A special opportunity. How did you +manage to create it?" + +This was too much for Mrs. Travers. "I! Create it!" she +exclaimed, indignantly, but under her breath. "How on earth do +you think I could have done it?" + +Mr. d'Alcacer, as if communing with himself, was heard to murmur +unrepentantly that indeed women seldom knew how they had "done +it," to which Mrs. Travers in a weary tone returned the remark +that no two men were dense in the same way. To this Mr. d'Alcacer +assented without difficulty. "Yes, our brand presents more +varieties. This, from a certain point of view, is obviously to +our advantage. We interest. . . . Not that I imagine myself +interesting to you, Mrs. Travers. But what about the Man of +Fate?" + +"Oh, yes," breathed out Mrs. Travers. + +"I see! Immensely!" said d'Alcacer in a tone of mysterious +understanding. "Was his stupidity so colossal?" + +"It was indistinguishable from great visions that were in no +sense mean and made up for him a world of his own." + +"I guessed that much," muttered d'Alcacer to himself. "But that, +you know, Mrs. Travers, that isn't good news at all to me. World +of dreams, eh? That's very bad, very dangerous. It's almost +fatal, Mrs. Travers." + +"Why all this dismay? Why do you object to a world of dreams?" + +"Because I dislike the prospect of being made a sacrifice of by +those Moors. I am not an optimist like our friend there," he +continued in a low tone nodding toward the dismal figure of Mr. +Travers huddled up in the chair. "I don't regard all this as a +farce and I have discovered in myself a strong objection to +having my throat cut by those gorgeous barbarians after a lot of +fatuous talk. Don't ask me why, Mrs. Travers. Put it down to an +absurd weakness." + +Mrs. Travers made a slight movement in her chair, raising her +hands to her head, and in the dim light of the lanterns d'Alcacer +saw the mass of her clear gleaming hair fall down and spread +itself over her shoulders. She seized half of it in her hands +which looked very white, and with her head inclined a little on +one side she began to make a plait. + +"You are terrifying," he said after watching the movement of her +fingers for a while. + +"Yes . . ?" she accentuated interrogatively. + +"You have the awfulness of the predestined. You, too, are the +prey of dreams." + +"Not of the Moors, then," she uttered, calmly, beginning the +other plait. D'Alcacer followed the operation to the end. Close +against her, her diaphanous shadow on the muslin reproduced her +slightest movements. D'Alcacer turned his eyes away. + +"No! No barbarian shall touch you. Because if it comes to that I +believe HE would be capable of killing you himself." + +A minute elapsed before he stole a glance in her direction. She +was leaning back again, her hands had fallen on her lap and her +head with a plait of hair on each side of her face, her head +incredibly changed in character and suggesting something +medieval, ascetic, drooped dreamily on her breast. + +D'Alcacer waited, holding his breath. She didn't move. In the dim +gleam of jewelled clasps, the faint sheen of gold embroideries +and the shimmer of silks, she was like a figure in a faded +painting. Only her neck appeared dazzlingly white in the smoky +redness of the light. D'Alcacer's wonder approached a feeling of +awe. He was on the point of moving away quietly when Mrs. +Travers, without stirring in the least, let him hear the words: + +"I have told him that every day seemed more difficult to live. +Don't you see how impossible this is?" + +D'Alcacer glanced rapidly across the Cage where Mr. Travers +seemed to be asleep all in a heap and presenting a ruffled +appearance like a sick bird. Nothing was distinct of him but the +bald patch on the top of his head. + +"Yes," he murmured, "it is most unfortunate. . . . I understand +your anxiety, Mrs. Travers, but . . ." + +"I am frightened," she said. + +He reflected a moment. "What answer did you get?" he asked, +softly. + +"The answer was: 'Patience.'" + +D'Alcacer laughed a little.--"You may well laugh," murmured Mrs. +Travers in a tone of anguish.--"That's why I did," he whispered. +"Patience! Didn't he see the horror of it?"--"I don't know. He +walked away," said Mrs. Travers. She looked immovably at her +hands clasped in her lap, and then with a burst of distress, "Mr. +d'Alcacer, what is going to happen?"--"Ah, you are asking +yourself the question at last. THAT will happen which cannot be +avoided; and perhaps you know best what it is."--"No. I am still +asking myself what he will do."--"Ah, that is not for me to +know," declared d'Alcacer. "I can't tell you what he will do, but +I know what will happen to him."--"To him, you say! To him!" she +cried.--"He will break his heart," said d'Alcacer, distinctly, +bending a little over the chair with a slight gasp at his own +audacity--and waited. + +"Croyez-vous?" came at last from Mrs. Travers in an accent so +coldly languid that d'Alcacer felt a shudder run down his spine. + +Was it possible that she was that kind of woman, he asked +himself. Did she see nothing in the world outside herself? Was +she above the commonest kind of compassion? He couldn't suspect +Mrs. Travers of stupidity; but she might have been heartless and, +like some women of her class, quite unable to recognize any +emotion in the world except her own. D'Alcacer was shocked and at +the same time he was relieved because he confessed to himself +that he had ventured very far. However, in her humanity she was +not vulgar enough to be offended. She was not the slave of small +meannesses. This thought pleased d'Alcacer who had schooled +himself not to expect too much from people. But he didn't know +what to do next. After what he had ventured to say and after the +manner in which she had met his audacity the only thing to do was +to change the conversation. Mrs. Travers remained perfectly +still. "I will pretend that I think she is asleep," he thought to +himself, meditating a retreat on tip-toe. + +He didn't know that Mrs. Travers was simply trying to recover the +full command of her faculties. His words had given her a terrible +shock. After managing to utter this defensive "croyez-vous" which +came out of her lips cold and faint as if in a last effort of +dying strength, she felt herself turn rigid and speechless. She +was thinking, stiff all over with emotion: "D'Alcacer has seen +it! How much more has he been able to see?" She didn't ask +herself that question in fear or shame but with a reckless +resignation. Out of that shock came a sensation of peace. A +glowing warmth passed through all her limbs. If d'Alcacer had +peered by that smoky light into her face he might have seen on +her lips a fatalistic smile come and go. But d'Alcacer would not +have dreamed of doing such a thing, and, besides, his attention +just then was drawn in another direction. He had heard subdued +exclamations, had noticed a stir on the decks of the Emma, and +even some sort of noise outside the ship. + +"These are strange sounds," he said. + +"Yes, I hear," Mrs. Travers murmured, uneasily. + +Vague shapes glided outside the Cage, barefooted, almost +noiseless, whispering Malay words secretly. + +"It seems as though a boat had come alongside," observed +d'Alcacer, lending an attentive ear. "I wonder what it means. In +our position. . . ." + +"It may mean anything," interrupted Mrs. Travers. + +"Jaffir is here," said a voice in the darkness of the after end +of the ship. Then there were some more words in which d'Alcacer's +attentive ear caught the word "surat." + +"A message of some sort has come," he said. "They will be calling +Captain Lingard. I wonder what thoughts or what dreams this call +will interrupt." He spoke lightly, looking now at Mrs. Travers +who had altered her position in the chair; and by their tones and +attitudes these two might have been on board the yacht sailing +the sea in perfect safety. "You, of course, are the one who will +be told. Don't you feel a sort of excitement, Mrs. Travers?" + +"I have been lately exhorted to patience," she said in the same +easy tone. "I can wait and I imagine I shall have to wait till +the morning." + +"It can't be very late yet," he said. "Time with us has been +standing still for ever so long. And yet this may be the hour of +fate." + +"Is this the feeling you have at this particular moment?" + +"I have had that feeling for a considerable number of moments +already. At first it was exciting. Now I am only moderately +anxious. I have employed my time in going over all my past life." + +"Can one really do that?" + +"Yes. I can't say I have been bored to extinction. I am still +alive, as you see; but I have done with that and I feel extremely +idle. There is only one thing I would like to do. I want to find +a few words that could convey to you my gratitude for all your +friendliness in the past, at the time when you let me see so much +of you in London. I felt always that you took me on my own terms +and that so kindly that often I felt inclined to think better of +myself. But I am afraid I am wearying you, Mrs. Travers." + +"I assure you you have never done that--in the past. And as to +the present moment I beg you not to go away. Stay by me please. +We are not going to pretend that we are sleepy at this early +hour." + +D'Alcacer brought a stool close to the long chair and sat down on +it. "Oh, yes, the possible hour of fate," he said. "I have a +request to make, Mrs. Travers. I don't ask you to betray +anything. What would be the good? The issue when it comes will be +plain enough. But I should like to get a warning, just something +that would give me time to pull myself together, to compose +myself as it were. I want you to promise me that if the balance +tips against us you will give me a sign. You could, for instance, +seize the opportunity when I am looking at you to put your left +hand to your forehead like this. It is a gesture that I have +never seen you make, and so. . . ." + +"Jorgenson!" Lingard's voice was heard forward where the light of +a lantern appeared suddenly. Then, after a pause, Lingard was +heard again: "Here!" + +Then the silent minutes began to go by. Mrs. Travers reclining in +her chair and d'Alcacer sitting on the stool waited motionless +without a word. Presently through the subdued murmurs and +agitation pervading the dark deck of the Emma Mrs. Travers heard +a firm footstep, and, lantern in hand, Lingard appeared outside +the muslin cage. + +"Will you come out and speak to me?" he said, loudly. "Not you. +The lady," he added in an authoritative tone as d'Alcacer rose +hastily from the stool. "I want Mrs. Travers." + +"Of course," muttered d'Alcacer to himself and as he opened the +door of the Cage to let Mrs. Travers slip through he whispered to +her, "This is the hour of fate." + +She brushed past him swiftly without the slightest sign that she +had heard the words. On the after deck between the Cage and the +deckhouse Lingard waited, lantern in hand. Nobody else was +visible about; but d'Alcacer felt in the air the presence of +silent and excited beings hovering outside the circle of light. +Lingard raised the lantern as Mrs. Travers approached and +d'Alcacer heard him say: + +"I have had news which you ought to know. Let us go into the +deckhouse." + +D'Alcacer saw their heads lighted up by the raised lantern +surrounded by the depths of shadow with an effect of a marvellous +and symbolic vision. He heard Mrs. Travers say "I would rather +not hear your news," in a tone that made that sensitive observer +purse up his lips in wonder. He thought that she was +over-wrought, that the situation had grown too much for her +nerves. But this was not the tone of a frightened person. It +flashed through his mind that she had become self-conscious, and +there he stopped in his speculation. That friend of women +remained discreet even in his thoughts. He stepped backward +further into the Cage and without surprise saw Mrs. Travers +follow Lingard into the deckhouse. + + + +IV + +Lingard stood the lantern on the table. Its light was very poor. +He dropped on to the sea-chest heavily. He, too, was +over-wrought. His flannel shirt was open at the neck. He had a +broad belt round his waist and was without his jacket. Before +him, Mrs. Travers, straight and tall in the gay silks, cottons, +and muslins of her outlandish dress, with the ends of the scarf +thrown over her head, hanging down in front of her, looked dimly +splendid and with a black glance out of her white face. He said: + +"Do you, too, want to throw me over? I tell you you can't do that +now." + +"I wasn't thinking of throwing you over, but I don't even know +what you mean. There seem to be no end of things I can't do. +Hadn't you better tell me of something that I could do? Have you +any idea yourself what you want from me?" + +"You can let me look at you. You can listen to me. You can speak +to me." + +"Frankly, I have never shirked doing all those things, whenever +you wanted me to. You have led me . . ." + +"I led you!" cried Lingard. + +"Oh! It was my fault," she said, without anger. "I must have +dreamed then that it was you who came to me in the dark with the +tale of your impossible life. Could I have sent you away?" + +"I wish you had. Why didn't you?" + +"Do you want me to tell you that you were irresistible? How could +I have sent you away? But you! What made you come back to me with +your very heart on your lips?" + +When Lingard spoke after a time it was in jerky sentences. + +"I didn't stop to think. I had been hurt. I didn't think of you +people as ladies and gentlemen. I thought of you as people whose +lives I held in my hand. How was it possible to forget you in my +trouble? It is your face that I brought back with me on board my +brig. I don't know why. I didn't look at you more than at anybody +else. It took me all my time to keep my temper down lest it +should burn you all up. I didn't want to be rude to you people, +but I found it wasn't very easy because threats were the only +argument I had. Was I very offensive, Mrs. Travers?" + +She had listened tense and very attentive, almost stern. And it +was without the slightest change of expression that she said: + +"I think that you bore yourself appropriately to the state of +life to which it has pleased God to call you." + +"What state?" muttered Lingard to himself. "I am what I am. They +call me Rajah Laut, King Tom, and such like. I think it amused +you to hear it, but I can tell you it is no joke to have such +names fastened on one, even in fun. And those very names have in +them something which makes all this affair here no small matter +to anybody." + +She stood before him with a set, severe face.--"Did you call me +out in this alarming manner only to quarrel with me?"--"No, but +why do you choose this time to tell me that my coming for help to +you was nothing but impudence in your sight? Well, I beg your +pardon for intruding on your dignity."--"You misunderstood me," +said Mrs. Travers, without relaxing for a moment her +contemplative severity. "Such a flattering thing had never +happened to me before and it will never happen to me again. But +believe me, King Tom, you did me too much honour. Jorgenson is +perfectly right in being angry with you for having taken a woman +in tow."--"He didn't mean to be rude," protested Lingard, +earnestly. Mrs. Travers didn't even smile at this intrusion of a +point of manners into the atmosphere of anguish and suspense that +seemed always to arise between her and this man who, sitting on +the sea-chest, had raised his eyes to her with an air of extreme +candour and seemed unable to take them off again. She continued +to look at him sternly by a tremendous effort of will. + +"How changed you are," he murmured. + +He was lost in the depths of the simplest wonder. She appeared to +him vengeful and as if turned forever into stone before his +bewildered remorse. Forever. Suddenly Mrs. Travers looked round +and sat down in the chair. Her strength failed her but she +remained austere with her hands resting on the arms of her seat. +Lingard sighed deeply and dropped his eyes. She did not dare +relax her muscles for fear of breaking down altogether and +betraying a reckless impulse which lurked at the bottom of her +dismay, to seize the head of d'Alcacer's Man of Fate, press it to +her breast once, fling it far away, and vanish herself, vanish +out of life like a wraith. The Man of Fate sat silent and bowed, +yet with a suggestion of strength in his dejection. "If I don't +speak," Mrs. Travers said to herself, with great inward calmness, +"I shall burst into tears." She said aloud, "What could have +happened? What have you dragged me in here for? Why don't you +tell me your news?" + +"I thought you didn't want to hear. I believe you really don't +want to. What is all this to you? I believe that you don't care +anything about what I feel, about what I do and how I end. I +verily believe that you don't care how you end yourself. I +believe you never cared for your own or anybody's feelings. I +don't think it is because you are hard, I think it is because you +don't know, and don't want to know, and are angry with life." + +He flourished an arm recklessly, and Mrs. Travers noticed for the +first time that he held a sheet of paper in his hand. + +"Is that your news there?" she asked, significantly. "It's +difficult to imagine that in this wilderness writing can have any +significance. And who on earth here could send you news on paper? +Will you let me see it? Could I understand it? Is it in English? +Come, King Tom, don't look at me in this awful way." + +She got up suddenly, not in indignation, but as if at the end of +her endurance. The jewelled clasps, the gold embroideries, +gleamed elusively amongst the folds of her draperies which +emitted a mysterious rustle. + +"I can't stand this," she cried. "I can't stand being looked at +like this. No woman could stand it. No woman has ever been looked +at like this. What can you see? Hatred I could understand. What +is it you think me capable of?" + +"You are very extraordinary," murmured Lingard, who had regained +his self-possession before that outburst. + +"Very well, and you are extraordinary, too. That's +understood--here we are both under that curse and having to face +together whatever may turn up. But who on earth could have sent +you this writing?" + +"Who?" repeated Lingard. "Why, that young fellow that blundered +on my brig in the dark, bringing a boatload of trouble alongside +on that quiet night in Carimata Straits. The darkest night I have +ever known. An accursed night." + +Mrs. Travers bit her lip, waited a little, then asked quietly: + +"What difficulty has he got into now?" + +"Difficulty!" cried Lingard. "He is immensely pleased with +himself, the young fool. You know, when you sent him to talk to +me that evening you left the yacht, he came with a loaded pistol +in his pocket. And now he has gone and done it." + +"Done it?" repeated Mrs. Travers blankly. "Done what?" + +She snatched from Lingard's unresisting palm the sheet of paper. +While she was smoothing it Lingard moved round and stood close at +her elbow. She ran quickly over the first lines, then her eyes +steadied. At the end she drew a quick breath and looked up at +Lingard. Their faces had never been so close together before and +Mrs. Travers had a surprising second of a perfectly new +sensation. She looked away.--"Do you understand what this news +means?" he murmured. Mrs. Travers let her hand fall by her side. +"Yes," she said in a low tone. "The compact is broken." + +Carter had begun his letter without any preliminaries: + +You cleared out in the middle of the night and took the lady away +with you. You left me no proper orders. But as a sailorman I +looked upon myself as left in charge of two ships while within +half a mile on that sandbank there were more than a hundred +piratical cut-throats watching me as closely as so many tigers +about to leap. Days went by without a word of you or the lady. To +leave the ships outside and go inland to look for you was not to +be thought of with all those pirates within springing distance. +Put yourself in my place. Can't you imagine my anxiety, my +sleepless nights? Each night worse than the night before. And +still no word from you. I couldn't sit still and worry my head +off about things I couldn't understand. I am a sailorman. My +first duty was to the ships. I had to put an end to this +impossible situation and I hope you will agree that I have done +it in a seamanlike way. One misty morning I moved the brig nearer +the sandbank and directly the mist cleared I opened fire on the +praus of those savages which were anchored in the channel. We +aimed wide at first to give those vagabonds that were on board a +chance to clear out and join their friends camped on the sands. I +didn't want to kill people. Then we got the long gun to bear and +in about an hour we had the bottom knocked out of the two praus. +The savages on the bank howled and screamed at every shot. They +are mighty angry but I don't care for their anger now, for by +sinking their praus I have made them as harmless as a flock of +lambs. They needn't starve on their sandbank because they have +two or three dugouts hauled up on the sand and they may ferry +themselves and their women to the mainland whenever they like. + +I fancy I have acted as a seaman and as a seaman I intend to go +on acting. Now I have made the ships safe I shall set about +without loss of time trying to get the yacht off the mud. When +that's done I shall arm the boats and proceed inshore to look for +you and the yacht's gentry, and shan't rest till I know whether +any or all of you are above the earth yet. + +I hope these words will reach you. Just as we had done the +business of those praus the man you sent off that night in +Carimata to stop our chief officer came sailing in from the west +with our first gig in tow and the boat's crew all well. Your +serang tells me he is a most trustworthy messenger and that his +name is Jaffir. He seems only too anxious to try to get to you as +soon as possible. I repeat, ships and men have been made safe and +I don't mean to give you up dead or alive. + +"You are quick in taking the point," said Lingard in a dull +voice, while Mrs. Travers, with the sheet of paper gripped in her +hand, looked into his face with anxious eyes. "He has been smart +and no mistake." + +"He didn't know," murmured Mrs. Travers. + +"No, he didn't know. But could I take everybody into my +confidence?" protested Lingard in the same low tone. "And yet who +else could I trust? It seemed to me that he must have understood +without being told. But he is too young. He may well be proud +according to his lights. He has done that job outside very +smartly--damn his smartness! And here we are with all our lives +depending on my word--which is broken now, Mrs. Travers. It is +broken." + +Mrs. Travers nodded at him slightly. + +"They would sooner have expected to see the sun and the moon fall +out of the sky," Lingard continued with repressed fire. Next +moment it seemed to have gone out of him and Mrs. Travers heard +him mutter a disconnected phrase. . . . "The world down about my +ears." + +"What will you do?" she whispered. + +"What will I do?" repeated Lingard, gently. "Oh, yes--do. Mrs. +Travers, do you see that I am nothing now? Just nothing." + +He had lost himself in the contemplation of her face turned to +him with an expression of awed curiosity. The shock of the world +coming down about his ears in consequence of Carter's smartness +was so terrific that it had dulled his sensibilities in the +manner of a great pain or of a great catastrophe. What was there +to look at but that woman's face, in a world which had lost its +consistency, its shape, and its promises in a moment? + +Mrs. Travers looked away. She understood that she had put to +Lingard an impossible question. What was presenting itself to her +as a problem was to that man a crisis of feeling. Obviously +Carter's action had broken the compact entered into with Daman, +and she was intelligent enough to understand that it was the sort +of thing that could not be explained away. It wasn't horror that +she felt, but a sort of consternation, something like the +discomfiture of people who have just missed their train. It was +only more intense. The real dismay had yet to make its way into +her comprehension. To Lingard it was a blow struck straight at +his heart. + +He was not angry with Carter. The fellow had acted like a seaman. +Carter's concern was for the ships. In this fatality Carter was a +mere incident. The real cause of the disaster was somewhere else, +was other, and more remote. And at the same time Lingard could +not defend himself from a feeling that it was in himself, too, +somewhere in the unexplored depths of his nature, something fatal +and unavoidable. He muttered to himself: + +"No. I am not a lucky man." + +This was but a feeble expression of the discovery of the truth +that suddenly had come home to him as if driven into his breast +by a revealing power which had decided that this was to be the +end of his fling. But he was not the man to give himself up to +the examination of his own sensations. His natural impulse was to +grapple with the circumstances and that was what he was trying to +do; but he missed now that sense of mastery which is half the +battle. Conflict of some sort was the very essence of his life. +But this was something he had never known before. This was a +conflict within himself. He had to face unsuspected powers, foes +that he could not go out to meet at the gate. They were within, +as though he had been betrayed by somebody, by some secret enemy. +He was ready to look round for that subtle traitor. A sort of +blankness fell on his mind and he suddenly thought: "Why! It's +myself." + +Immediately afterward he had a clear, merciless recollection of +Hassim and Immada. He saw them far off beyond the forests. Oh, +yes, they existed--within his breast! + +"That was a night!" he muttered, looking straight at Mrs. +Travers. He had been looking at her all the time. His glance had +held her under a spell, but for a whole interminable minute he +had not been aware of her at all. At the murmur of his words she +made a slight movement and he saw her again.--"What night?" she +whispered, timidly, like an intruder. She was astonished to see +him smile.--"Not like this one," he said. "You made me notice how +quiet and still it was. Yes. Listen how still it is." + +Both moved their heads slightly and seemed to lend an ear. There +was not a murmur, sigh, rustle, splash, or footfall. No whispers, +no tremors, not a sound of any kind. They might have been alone +on board the Emma, abandoned even by the ghost of Captain +Jorgenson departed to rejoin the Barque Wild Rose on the shore of +the Cimmerian sea.--"It's like the stillness of the end," said +Mrs. Travers in a low, equable voice.--"Yes, but that, too, is +false," said Lingard in the same tone.--"I don't understand," +Mrs. Travers began, hurriedly, after a short silence. "But don't +use that word. Don't use it, King Tom! It frightens me by its +mere sound." + +Lingard made no sign. His thoughts were back with Hassim and +Immada. The young chief and his sister had gone up country on a +voluntary mission to persuade Belarab to return to his stockade +and to take up again the direction of affairs. They carried +urgent messages from Lingard, who for Belarab was the very +embodiment of truth and force, that unquestioned force which had +permitted Belarab to indulge in all his melancholy hesitations. +But those two young people had also some personal prestige. They +were Lingard's heart's friends. They were like his children. But +beside that, their high birth, their warlike story, their +wanderings, adventures, and prospects had given them a glamour of +their own. + + + +V + +The very day that Travers and d'Alcacer had come on board the +Emma Hassim and Immada had departed on their mission; for +Lingard, of course, could not think of leaving the white people +alone with Jorgenson. Jorgenson was all right, but his +ineradicable habit of muttering in his moustache about "throwing +a lighted match amongst the powder barrels" had inspired Lingard +with a certain amount of mistrust. And, moreover, he did not want +to go away from Mrs. Travers. + +It was the only correct inspiration on Carter's part to send +Jaffir with his report to Lingard. That stout-hearted fighter, +swimmer, and devoted follower of the princely misfortunes of +Hassim and Immada, had looked upon his mission to catch the chief +officer of the yacht (which he had received from Lingard in +Carimata) as a trifling job. It took him a little longer than he +expected but he had got back to the brig just in time to be sent +on to Lingard with Carter's letter after a couple of hours' rest. +He had the story of all the happenings from Wasub before he left +and though his face preserved its grave impassivity, in his heart +he did not like it at all. + +Fearless and wily, Jaffir was the man for difficult missions and +a born messenger--as he expressed it himself--"to bear weighty +words between great men." With his unfailing memory he was able +to reproduce them exactly, whether soft or hard, in council or in +private; for he knew no fear. With him there was no need for +writing which might fall into the hands of the enemy. If he died +on the way the message would die with him. He had also the gift +of getting at the sense of any situation and an observant eye. He +was distinctly one of those men from whom trustworthy information +can be obtained by the leaders of great enterprises. Lingard did +put several questions to him, but in this instance, of course, +Jaffir could have only very little to say. Of Carter, whom he +called the "young one," he said that he looked as white men look +when they are pleased with themselves; then added without waiting +for a definite question--"The ships out there are now safe +enough, O, Rajah Laut!" There was no elation in his tone. + +Lingard looked at him blankly. When the Greatest of White Men +remarked that there was yet a price to be paid for that safety, +Jaffir assented by a "Yes, by Allah!" without losing for a moment +his grim composure. When told that he would be required to go and +find his master and the lady Immada who were somewhere in the +back country, in Belarab's travelling camp, he declared himself +ready to proceed at once. He had eaten his fill and had slept +three hours on board the brig and he was not tired. When he was +young he used to get tired sometimes; but for many years now he +had known no such weakness. He did not require the boat with +paddlers in which he had come up into the lagoon. He would go +alone in a small canoe. This was no time, he remarked, for +publicity and ostentation. His pent-up anxiety burst through his +lips. "It is in my mind, Tuan, that death has not been so near +them since that night when you came sailing in a black cloud and +took us all out of the stockade." + +Lingard said nothing but there was in Jaffir a faith in that +white man which was not easily shaken. + +"How are you going to save them this time, O Rajah Laut?" he +asked, simply. + +"Belarab is my friend," murmured Lingard. + +In his anxiety Jaffir was very outspoken. "A man of peace!" he +exclaimed in a low tone. "Who could be safe with a man like +that?" he asked, contemptuously. + +"There is no war," said Lingard + +"There is suspicion, dread, and revenge, and the anger of armed +men," retorted Jaffir. "You have taken the white prisoners out of +their hands by the force of your words alone. Is that so, Tuan?" + +"Yes," said Lingard. + +"And you have them on board here?" asked Jaffir, with a glance +over his shoulder at the white and misty structure within which +by the light of a small oil flame d'Alcacer and Mrs. Travers were +just then conversing. + +"Yes, I have them here." + +"Then, Rajah Laut," whispered Jaffir, "you can make all safe by +giving them back." + +"Can I do that?" were the words breathed out through Lingard's +lips to the faithful follower of Hassim and Immada. + +"Can you do anything else?" was the whispered retort of Jaffir +the messenger accustomed to speak frankly to the great of the +earth. "You are a white man and you can have only one word. And +now I go." + +A small, rough dug-out belonging to the Emma had been brought +round to the ladder. A shadowy calash hovering respectfully in +the darkness of the deck had already cleared his throat twice in +a warning manner. + +"Yes, Jaffir, go," said Lingard, "and be my friend." + +"I am the friend of a great prince," said the other, sturdily. +"But you, Rajah Laut, were even greater. And great you will +remain while you are with us, people of this sea and of this +land. But what becomes of the strength of your arms before your +own white people? Where does it go to, I say? Well, then, we must +trust in the strength of your heart." + +"I hope that will never fail," said Lingard, and Jaffir emitted a +grunt of satisfaction. "But God alone sees into men's hearts." + +"Yes. Our refuge is with Allah," assented Jaffir, who had +acquired the habit of pious turns of speech in the frequentation +of professedly religious men, of whom there were many in +Belarab's stockade. As a matter of fact, he reposed all his trust +in Lingard who had with him the prestige of a providential man +sent at the hour of need by heaven itself. He waited a while, +then: "What is the message I am to take?" he asked. + +"Tell the whole tale to the Rajah Hassim," said Lingard. "And +tell him to make his way here with the lady his sister secretly +and with speed. The time of great trouble has come. Let us, at +least, be together." + +"Right! Right!" Jaffir approved, heartily. "To die alone under +the weight of one's enemies is a dreadful fate." + +He stepped back out of the sheen of the lamp by which they had +been talking and making his way down into the small canoe he took +up a paddle and without a splash vanished on the dark lagoon. + +It was then that Mrs. Travers and d'Alcacer heard Lingard call +aloud for Jorgenson. Instantly the familiar shadow stood at +Lingard's elbow and listened in detached silence. Only at the end +of the tale it marvelled audibly: "Here's a mess for you if you +like." But really nothing in the world could astonish or startle +old Jorgenson. He turned away muttering in his moustache. Lingard +remained with his chin in his hand and Jaffir's last words took +gradual possession of his mind. Then brusquely he picked up the +lamp and went to seek Mrs. Travers. He went to seek her because +he actually needed her bodily presence, the sound of her voice, +the dark, clear glance of her eyes. She could do nothing for him. +On his way he became aware that Jorgenson had turned out the few +Malays on board the Emma and was disposing them about the decks +to watch the lagoon in all directions. On calling Mrs. Travers +out of the Cage Lingard was, in the midst of his mental struggle, +conscious of a certain satisfaction in taking her away from +d'Alcacer. He couldn't spare any of her attention to any other +man, not the least crumb of her time, not the least particle of +her thought! He needed it all. To see it withdrawn from him for +the merest instant was irritating--seemed a disaster. + +D'Alcacer, left alone, wondered at the imperious tone of +Lingard's call. To this observer of shades the fact seemed +considerable. "Sheer nerves," he concluded, to himself. "The man +is overstrung. He must have had some sort of shock." But what +could it be--he wondered to himself. In the tense stagnation of +those days of waiting the slightest tremor had an enormous +importance. D'Alcacer did not seek his camp bedstead. He didn't +even sit down. With the palms of his hands against the edge of +the table he leaned back against it. In that negligent attitude +he preserved an alert mind which for a moment wondered whether +Mrs. Travers had not spoiled Lingard a little. Yet in the +suddenness of the forced association, where, too, d'Alcacer was +sure there was some moral problem in the background, he +recognized the extreme difficulty of weighing accurately the +imperious demands against the necessary reservations, the exact +proportions of boldness and caution. And d'Alcacer admired upon +the whole Mrs. Travers' cleverness. + +There could be no doubt that she had the situation in her hands. +That, of course, did not mean safety. She had it in her hands as +one may hold some highly explosive and uncertain compound. +D'Alcacer thought of her with profound sympathy and with a quite +unselfish interest. Sometimes in a street we cross the path of +personalities compelling sympathy and wonder but for all that we +don't follow them home. D'Alcacer refrained from following Mrs. +Travers any further. He had become suddenly aware that Mr. +Travers was sitting up on his camp bedstead. He must have done it +very suddenly. Only a moment before he had appeared plunged in +the deepest slumber, and the stillness for a long time now had +been perfectly unbroken. D'Alcacer was startled enough for an +exclamation and Mr. Travers turned his head slowly in his +direction. D'Alcacer approached the bedstead with a certain +reluctance. + +"Awake?" he said. + +"A sudden chill," said Mr. Travers. "But I don't feel cold now. +Strange! I had the impression of an icy blast." + +"Ah!" said d'Alcacer. + +"Impossible, of course!" went on Mr. Travers. "This stagnating +air never moves. It clings odiously to one. What time is it?" + +"Really, I don't know." + +"The glass of my watch was smashed on that night when we were so +treacherously assailed by the savages on the sandbank," grumbled +Mr. Travers. + +"I must say I was never so surprised in my life," confessed +d'Alcacer. "We had stopped and I was lighting a cigar, you may +remember." + +"No," said Mr. Travers. "I had just then pulled out my watch. Of +course it flew out of my hand but it hung by the chain. Somebody +trampled on it. The hands are broken off short. It keeps on +ticking but I can't tell the time. It's absurd. Most provoking." + +"Do you mean to say," asked d'Alcacer, "that you have been +winding it up every evening?" + +Mr. Travers looked up from his bedstead and he also seemed +surprised. "Why! I suppose I have." He kept silent for a while. +"It isn't so much blind habit as you may think. My habits are the +outcome of strict method. I had to order my life methodically. +You know very well, my dear d'Alcacer, that without strict method +I would not have been able to get through my work and would have +had no time at all for social duties, which, of course, are of +very great importance. I may say that, materially, method has +been the foundation of my success in public life. There were +never any empty moments in my day. And now this! . . ." He +looked all round the Cage. . . . "Where's my wife?" he asked. + +"I was talking to her only a moment ago," answered d'Alcacer. "I +don't know the time. My watch is on board the yacht; but it isn't +late, you know." + +Mr. Travers flung off with unwonted briskness the light cotton +sheet which covered him. He buttoned hastily the tunic which he +had unfastened before lying down, and just as d'Alcacer was +expecting him to swing his feet to the deck impetuously, he lay +down again on the pillow and remained perfectly still. + +D'Alcacer waited awhile and then began to pace the Cage. After a +couple of turns he stopped and said, gently: + +"I am afraid, Travers, you are not very well." + +"I don't know what illness is," answered the voice from the +pillow to the great relief of d'Alcacer who really had not +expected an answer. "Good health is a great asset in public life. +Illness may make you miss a unique opportunity. I was never ill." + +All this came out deadened in tone, as if the speaker's face had +been buried in the pillow. D'Alcacer resumed his pacing. + +"I think I asked you where my wife was," said the muffled voice. + +With great presence of mind d'Alcacer kept on pacing the Cage as +if he had not heard.--"You know, I think she is mad," went on the +muffled voice. "Unless I am." + +Again d'Alcacer managed not to interrupt his regular pacing. "Do +you know what I think?" he said, abruptly. "I think, Travers, +that you don't want to talk about her. I think that you don't +want to talk about anything. And to tell you the truth I don't +want to, either." + +D'Alcacer caught a faint sigh from the pillow and at the same +time saw a small, dim flame appear outside the Cage. And still he +kept on his pacing. Mrs. Travers and Lingard coming out of the +deckhouse stopped just outside the door and Lingard stood the +deck-lamp on its roof. They were too far from d'Alcacer to be +heard, but he could make them out: Mrs. Travers, as straight as +an arrow, and the heavy bulk of the man who faced her with a +lowered head. He saw it in profile against the light and as if +deferential in its slight droop. They were looking straight at +each other. Neither of them made the slightest gesture. + +"There is that in me," Lingard murmured, deeply, "which would set +my heart harder than a stone. I am King Tom, Rajah Laut, and fit +to look any man hereabouts in the face. I have my name to take +care of. Everything rests on that." + +"Mr. d'Alcacer would express this by saying that everything +rested on honour," commented Mrs. Travers with lips that did not +tremble, though from time to time she could feel the accelerated +beating of her heart. + +"Call it what you like. It's something that a man needs to draw a +free breath. And look!--as you see me standing before you here I +care for it no longer." + +"But I do care for it," retorted Mrs. Travers. "As you see me +standing here--I do care. This is something that is your very +own. You have a right to it. And I repeat I do care for it." + +"Care for something of my own," murmured Lingard, very close to +her face. "Why should you care for my rights?" + +"Because," she said, holding her ground though their foreheads +were nearly touching, "because if I ever get back to my life I +don't want to make it more absurd by real remorse." + +Her tone was soft and Lingard received the breath of those words +like a caress on his face. D'Alcacer, in the Cage, made still +another effort to keep up his pacing. He didn't want to give Mr. +Travers the slightest excuse for sitting up again and looking +round. + +"That I should live to hear anybody say they cared anything for +what was mine!" whispered Lingard. "And that it should be +you--you, who have taken all hardness out of me." + +"I don't want your heart to be made hard. I want it to be made +firm." + +"You couldn't have said anything better than what you have said +just now to make it steady," flowed the murmur of Lingard's voice +with something tender in its depth. "Has anybody ever had a +friend like this?" he exclaimed, raising his head as if taking +the starry night to witness. + +"And I ask myself is it possible that there should be another man +on earth that I could trust as I trust you. I say to you: Yes! Go +and save what you have a right to and don't forget to be +merciful. I will not remind you of our perfect innocence. The +earth must be small indeed that we should have blundered like +this into your life. It's enough to make one believe in fatality. +But I can't find it in me to behave like a fatalist, to sit down +with folded hands. Had you been another kind of man I might have +been too hopeless or too disdainful. Do you know what Mr. +d'Alcacer calls you?" + +Inside the Cage d'Alcacer, casting curious glances in their +direction, saw Lingard shake his head and thought with slight +uneasiness: "He is refusing her something." + +"Mr. d'Alcacer's name for you is the 'Man of Fate'," said Mrs. +Travers, a little breathlessly. + +"A mouthful. Never mind, he is a gentleman. It's what you. . . ." + +"I call you all but by your Christian name," said Mrs. Travers, +hastily. "Believe me, Mr. d'Alcacer understands you." + +"He is all right," interjected Lingard. + +"And he is innocent. I remember what you have said--that the +innocent must take their chance. Well, then, do what is right." + +"You think it would be right? You believe it? You feel it?" + +"At this time, in this place, from a man like you--Yes, it is +right." + +Lingard thought that woman wonderfully true to him and +wonderfully fearless with herself. The necessity to take back the +two captives to the stockade was so clear and unavoidable now, +that he believed nothing on earth could have stopped him from +doing so, but where was there another woman in the world who +would have taken it like this? And he reflected that in truth and +courage there is found wisdom. It seemed to him that till Mrs. +Travers came to stand by his side he had never known what truth +and courage and wisdom were. With his eyes on her face and having +been told that in her eyes he appeared worthy of being both +commanded and entreated, he felt an instant of complete content, +a moment of, as it were, perfect emotional repose. + +During the silence Mrs. Travers with a quick sideglance noticed +d'Alcacer as one sees a man in a mist, his mere dark shape +arrested close to the muslin screen. She had no doubt that he was +looking in their direction and that he could see them much more +plainly than she could see him. Mrs. Travers thought suddenly how +anxious he must be; and she remembered that he had begged her for +some sign, for some warning, beforehand, at the moment of crisis. +She had understood very well his hinted request for time to get +prepared. If he was to get more than a few minutes, THIS was the +moment to make him a sign--the sign he had suggested himself. +Mrs. Travers moved back the least bit so as to let the light fall +in front of her and with a slow, distinct movement she put her +left hand to her forehead. + +"Well, then," she heard Lingard's forcible murmur, "well, then, +Mrs. Travers, it must be done to-night." + +One may be true, fearless, and wise, and yet catch one's breath +before the simple finality of action. Mrs. Travers caught her +breath: "To-night! To-night!" she whispered. D'Alcacer's dark and +misty silhouette became more blurred. He had seen her sign and +had retreated deeper within the Cage. + +"Yes, to-night," affirmed Lingard. "Now, at once, within the +hour, this moment," he murmured, fiercely, following Mrs. Travers +in her recoiling movement. She felt her arm being seized swiftly. +"Don't you see that if it is to do any good, that if they are not +to be delivered to mere slaughter, it must be done while all is +dark ashore, before an armed mob in boats comes clamouring +alongside? Yes. Before the night is an hour older, so that I may +be hammering at Belarab's gate while all the Settlement is still +asleep." + +Mrs. Travers didn't dream of protesting. For the moment she was +unable to speak. This man was very fierce and just as suddenly as +it had been gripped (making her think incongruously in the midst +of her agitation that there would be certainly a bruise there in +the morning) she felt her arm released and a penitential tone +come into Lingard's murmuring voice. + +"And even now it's nearly too late! The road was plain, but I saw +you on it and my heart failed me. I was there like an empty man +and I dared not face you. You must forgive me. No, I had no right +to doubt you for a moment. I feel as if I ought to go on my knees +and beg your pardon for forgetting what you are, for daring to +forget." + +"Why, King Tom, what is it?" + +"It seems as if I had sinned," she heard him say. He seized her +by the shoulders, turned her about, moved her forward a step or +two. His hands were heavy, his force irresistible, though he +himself imagined he was handling her gently. "Look straight +before you," he growled into her ear. "Do you see anything?" Mrs. +Travers, passive between the rigid arms, could see nothing but, +far off, the massed, featureless shadows of the shore. + +"No, I see nothing," she said. + +"You can't be looking the right way," she heard him behind her. +And now she felt her head between Lingard's hands. He moved it +the least bit to the right. "There! See it?" + +"No. What am I to look for?" + +"A gleam of light," said Lingard, taking away his hands suddenly. +"A gleam that will grow into a blaze before our boat can get half +way across the lagoon." + +Even as Lingard spoke Mrs. Travers caught sight of a red spark +far away. She had looked often enough at the Settlement, as on +the face of a painting on a curtain, to have its configuration +fixed in her mind, to know that it was on the beach at its end +furthest from Belarab's stockade. + +"The brushwood is catching," murmured Lingard in her ear. "If +they had some dry grass the whole pile would be blazing by now." + +"And this means. . . ." + +"It means that the news has spread. And it is before Tengga's +enclosure on his end of the beach. That's where all the brains of +the Settlement are. It means talk and excitement and plenty of +crafty words. Tengga's fire! I tell you, Mrs. Travers, that +before half an hour has passed Daman will be there to make +friends with the fat Tengga, who is ready to say to him, 'I told +you so'." + +"I see," murmured Mrs. Travers. Lingard drew her gently to the +rail. + +"And now look over there at the other end of the beach where the +shadows are heaviest. That is Belarab's fort, his houses, his +treasure, his dependents. That's where the strength of the +Settlement is. I kept it up. I made it last. But what is it now? +It's like a weapon in the hand of a dead man. And yet it's all we +have to look to, if indeed there is still time. I swear to you I +wouldn't dare land them in daylight for fear they should be +slaughtered on the beach." + +"There is no time to lose," whispered Mrs. Travers, and Lingard, +too, spoke very low. + +"No, not if I, too, am to keep what is my right. It's you who +have said it." + +"Yes, I have said it," she whispered, without lifting her head. +Lingard made a brusque movement at her elbow and bent his head +close to her shoulder. + +"And I who mistrusted you! Like Arabs do to their great men, I +ought to kiss the hem of your robe in repentance for having +doubted the greatness of your heart." + +"Oh! my heart!" said Mrs. Travers, lightly, still gazing at the +fire, which had suddenly shot up to a tall blaze. "I can assure +you it has been of very little account in the world." She paused +for a moment to steady her voice, then said, firmly, "Let's get +this over." + +"To tell you the truth the boat has been ready for some time." + +"Well, then. . . ." + +"Mrs. Travers," said Lingard with an effort, "they are people of +your own kind." And suddenly he burst out: "I cannot take them +ashore bound hand and foot." + +"Mr. d'Alcacer knows. You will find him ready. Ever since the +beginning he has been prepared for whatever might happen." + +"He is a man," said Lingard with conviction. "But it's of the +other that I am thinking." + +"Ah, the other," she repeated. "Then, what about my thoughts? +Luckily we have Mr. d'Alcacer. I shall speak to him first." + +She turned away from the rail and moved toward the Cage. + +"Jorgenson," the voice of Lingard resounded all along the deck, +"get a light on the gangway." Then he followed Mrs. Travers +slowly. + + + +VI + +D'Alcacer, after receiving his warning, stepped back and leaned +against the edge of the table. He could not ignore in himself a +certain emotion. And indeed, when he had asked Mrs. Travers for a +sign he expected to be moved--but he had not expected the sign to +come so soon. He expected this night to pass like other nights, +in broken slumbers, bodily discomfort, and the unrest of +disconnected thinking. At the same time he was surprised at his +own emotion. He had flattered himself on the possession of more +philosophy. He thought that this famous sense of +self-preservation was a queer thing, a purely animal thing. "For, +as a thinking man," he reflected, "I really ought not to care." +It was probably the unusual that affected him. Clearly. If he had +been lying seriously ill in a room in a hotel and had overheard +some ominous whispers he would not have cared in the least. Ah, +but then he would have been ill--and in illness one grows so +indifferent. Illness is a great help to unemotional behaviour, +which of course is the correct behaviour for a man of the world. +He almost regretted he was not very ill. But, then, Mr. Travers +was obviously ill and it did not seem to help him much. D'Alcacer +glanced at the bedstead where Mr. Travers preserved an immobility +which struck d'Alcacer as obviously affected. He mistrusted it. +Generally he mistrusted Mr. Travers. One couldn't tell what he +would do next. Not that he could do much one way or another, but +that somehow he threatened to rob the situation of whatever +dignity it may have had as a stroke of fate, as a call on +courage. Mr. d'Alcacer, acutely observant and alert for the +slightest hints, preferred to look upon himself as the victim not +of a swindle but of a rough man naively engaged in a contest with +heaven's injustice. D'Alcacer did not examine his heart, but some +lines of a French poet came into his mind, to the effect that in +all times those who fought with an unjust heaven had possessed +the secret admiration and love of men. He didn't go so far as +love but he could not deny to himself that his feeling toward +Lingard was secretly friendly and--well, appreciative. Mr. +Travers sat up suddenly. What a horrible nuisance, thought +d'Alcacer, fixing his eyes on the tips of his shoes with the hope +that perhaps the other would lie down again. Mr. Travers spoke. + +"Still up, d'Alcacer?" + +"I assure you it isn't late. It's dark at six, we dined before +seven, that makes the night long and I am not a very good +sleeper; that is, I cannot go to sleep till late in the night." + +"I envy you," said Mr. Travers, speaking with a sort of drowsy +apathy. "I am always dropping off and the awakenings are +horrible." + +D'Alcacer, raising his eyes, noticed that Mrs. Travers and +Lingard had vanished from the light. They had gone to the rail +where d'Alcacer could not see them. Some pity mingled with his +vexation at Mr. Travers' snatchy wakefulness. There was something +weird about the man, he reflected. "Jorgenson," he began aloud. + +"What's that?" snapped Mr. Travers. + +"It's the name of that lanky old store-keeper who is always about +the decks." + +"I haven't seen him. I don't see anybody. I don't know anybody. I +prefer not to notice." + +"I was only going to say that he gave me a pack of cards; would +you like a game of piquet?" + +"I don't think I could keep my eyes open," said Mr. Travers in an +unexpectedly confidential tone. "Isn't it funny, d'Alcacer? And +then I wake up. It's too awful." + +D'Alcacer made no remark and Mr. Travers seemed not to have +expected any. + +"When I said my wife was mad," he began, suddenly, causing +d'Alcacer to start, "I didn't mean it literally, of course." His +tone sounded slightly dogmatic and he didn't seem to be aware of +any interval during which he had appeared to sleep. D'Alcacer was +convinced more than ever that he had been shamming, and resigned +himself wearily to listen, folding his arms across his chest. +"What I meant, really," continued Mr. Travers, "was that she is +the victim of a craze. Society is subject to crazes, as you know +very well. They are not reprehensible in themselves, but the +worst of my wife is that her crazes are never like those of the +people with whom she naturally associates. They generally run +counter to them. This peculiarity has given me some anxiety, you +understand, in the position we occupy. People will begin to say +that she is eccentric. Do you see her anywhere, d'Alcacer?" + +D'Alcacer was thankful to be able to say that he didn't see Mrs. +Travers. He didn't even hear any murmurs, though he had no doubt +that everybody on board the Emma was wide awake by now. But Mr. +Travers inspired him with invincible mistrust and he thought it +prudent to add: + +"You forget that your wife has a room in the deckhouse." + +This was as far as he would go, for he knew very well that she +was not in the deckhouse. Mr. Travers, completely convinced by +the statement, made no sound. But neither did he lie down again. +D'Alcacer gave himself up to meditation. The night seemed +extremely oppressive. At Lingard's shout for Jorgenson, that in +the profound silence struck his ears ominously, he raised his +eyes and saw Mrs. Travers outside the door of the Cage. He +started forward but she was already within. He saw she was moved. +She seemed out of breath and as if unable to speak at first. + +"Hadn't we better shut the door?" suggested d'Alcacer. + +"Captain Lingard's coming in," she whispered to him. "He has made +up his mind." + +"That's an excellent thing," commented d'Alcacer, quietly. "I +conclude from this that we shall hear something." + +"You shall hear it all from me," breathed out Mrs. Travers. + +"Ah!" exclaimed d'Alcacer very low. + +By that time Lingard had entered, too, and the decks of the Emma +were all astir with moving figures. Jorgenson's voice was also +heard giving directions. For nearly a minute the four persons +within the Cage remained motionless. A shadowy Malay in the +gangway said suddenly: "Sudah, Tuan," and Lingard murmured, +"Ready, Mrs. Travers." + +She seized d'Alcacer's arm and led him to the side of the Cage +furthest from the corner in which Mr. Travers' bed was placed, +while Lingard busied himself in pricking up the wick of the Cage +lantern as if it had suddenly occurred to him that this, whatever +happened, should not be a deed of darkness. Mr. Travers did +nothing but turn his head to look over his shoulder. + +"One moment," said d'Alcacer, in a low tone and smiling at Mrs. +Travers' agitation. "Before you tell me anything let me ask you: +'Have YOU made up your mind?'" He saw with much surprise a +widening of her eyes. Was it indignation? A pause as of suspicion +fell between those two people. Then d'Alcacer said +apologetically: "Perhaps I ought not to have asked that +question," and Lingard caught Mrs. Travers' words, "Oh, I am not +afraid to answer that question." + +Then their voices sank. Lingard hung the lamp up again and stood +idle in the revived light; but almost immediately he heard +d'Alcacer calling him discreetly. + +"Captain Lingard!" + +He moved toward them at once. At the same instant Mr. Travers' +head pivoted away from the group to its frontal position. + +D'Alcacer, very serious, spoke in a familiar undertone. + +"Mrs. Travers tells me that we must be delivered up to those +Moors on shore." + +"Yes, there is nothing else for it," said Lingard. + +"I confess I am a bit startled," said d'Alcacer; but except for a +slightly hurried utterance nobody could have guessed at anything +resembling emotion. + +"I have a right to my good name," said Lingard, also very calm, +while Mrs. Travers near him, with half-veiled eyes, listened +impassive like a presiding genius. + +"I wouldn't question that for a moment," conceded d'Alcacer. "A +point of honour is not to be discussed. But there is such a thing +as humanity, too. To be delivered up helplessly. . . ." + +"Perhaps!" interrupted Lingard. "But you needn't feel hopeless. I +am not at liberty to give up my life for your own. Mrs. Travers +knows why. That, too, is engaged." + +"Always on your honour?" + +"I don't know. A promise is a promise." + +"Nobody can be held to the impossible," remarked d'Alcacer. + +"Impossible! What is impossible? I don't know it. I am not a man +to talk of the impossible or dodge behind it. I did not bring you +here." + +D'Alcacer lowered his head for a moment. "I have finished," he +said, gravely. "That much I had to say. I hope you don't think I +have appeared unduly anxious." + +"It's the best policy, too." Mrs. Travers made herself heard +suddenly. Nothing of her moved but her lips, she did not even +raise her eyes. "It's the only possible policy. You believe me, +Mr. d'Alcacer? . . ." He made an almost imperceptible movement of +the head. . . . "Well, then, I put all my hope in you, Mr. +d'Alcacer, to get this over as easily as possible and save us all +from some odious scene. You think perhaps that it is I who ought +to. . . ." + +"No, no! I don't think so," interrupted d'Alcacer. "It would be +impossible." + +"I am afraid it would," she admitted, nervously. + +D'Alcacer made a gesture as if to beg her to say no more and at +once crossed over to Mr. Travers' side of the Cage. He did not +want to give himself time to think about his task. Mr. Travers +was sitting up on the camp bedstead with a light cotton sheet +over his legs. He stared at nothing, and on approaching him +d'Alcacer disregarded the slight sinking of his own heart at this +aspect which seemed to be that of extreme terror. "This is +awful," he thought. The man kept as still as a hare in its form. + +The impressed d'Alcacer had to make an effort to bring himself to +tap him lightly on the shoulder. + +"The moment has come, Travers, to show some fortitude," he said +with easy intimacy. Mr. Travers looked up swiftly. "I have just +been talking to your wife. She had a communication from Captain +Lingard for us both. It remains for us now to preserve as much as +possible our dignity. I hope that if necessary we will both know +how to die." + +In a moment of profound stillness, d'Alcacer had time to wonder +whether his face was as stony in expression as the one upturned +to him. But suddenly a smile appeared on it, which was certainly +the last thing d'Alcacer expected to see. An indubitable smile. A +slightly contemptuous smile. + +"My wife has been stuffing your head with some more of her +nonsense." Mr. Travers spoke in a voice which astonished +d'Alcacer as much as the smile, a voice that was not irritable +nor peevish, but had a distinct note of indulgence. "My dear +d'Alcacer, that craze has got such a hold of her that she would +tell you any sort of tale. Social impostors, mediums, +fortune-tellers, charlatans of all sorts do obtain a strange +influence over women. You have seen that sort of thing yourself. +I had a talk with her before dinner. The influence that bandit +has got over her is incredible. I really believe the fellow is +half crazy himself. They often are, you know. I gave up arguing +with her. Now, what is it you have got to tell me? But I warn you +that I am not going to take it seriously." + +He rejected briskly the cotton sheet, put his feet to the ground +and buttoned his jacket. D'Alcacer, as he talked, became aware by +the slight noise behind him that Mrs. Travers and Lingard were +leaving the Cage, but he went on to the end and then waited +anxiously for the answer. + +"See! She has followed him out on deck," were Mr. Travers' first +words. "I hope you understand that it is a mere craze. You can't +help seeing that. Look at her costume. She simply has lost her +head. Luckily the world needn't know. But suppose that something +similar had happened at home. It would have been extremely +awkward. Oh! yes, I will come. I will go anywhere. I can't stand +this hulk, those people, this infernal Cage. I believe I should +fall ill if I were to remain here." + +The inward detached voice of Jorgenson made itself heard near the +gangway saying: "The boat has been waiting for this hour past, +King Tom." + +"Let us make a virtue of necessity and go with a good grace," +said d'Alcacer, ready to take Mr. Travers under the arm +persuasively, for he did not know what to make of that gentleman. + +But Mr. Travers seemed another man. "I am afraid. d'Alcacer, that +you, too, are not very strong-minded. I am going to take a +blanket off this bedstead. . . ." He flung it hastily over his +arm and followed d'Alcacer closely. "What I suffer mostly from, +strange to say, is cold." + +Mrs. Travers and Lingard were waiting near the gangway. To +everybody's extreme surprise Mr. Travers addressed his wife +first. + +"You were always laughing at people's crazes," was what he said, +"and now you have a craze of your own. But we won't discuss +that." + +D'Alcacer passed on, raising his cap to Mrs. Travers, and went +down the ship's side into the boat. Jorgenson had vanished in his +own manner like an exorcised ghost, and Lingard, stepping back, +left husband and wife face to face. + +"Did you think I was going to make a fuss?" asked Mr. Travers in +a very low voice. "I assure you I would rather go than stay here. +You didn't think that? You have lost all sense of reality, of +probability. I was just thinking this evening that I would rather +be anywhere than here looking on at you. At your folly. . . ." + +Mrs. Travers' loud, "Martin!" made Lingard wince, caused +d'Alcacer to lift his head down there in the boat, and even +Jorgenson, forward somewhere out of sight, ceased mumbling in his +moustache. The only person who seemed not to have heard that +exclamation was Mr. Travers himself, who continued smoothly: + +". . . at the aberration of your mind, you who seemed so superior +to common credulities. You are not yourself, not at all, and some +day you will admit to me that . . . No, the best thing will be to +forget it, as you will soon see yourself. We shall never mention +that subject in the future. I am certain you will be only too +glad to agree with me on that point." + +"How far ahead are you looking?" asked Mrs. Travers, finding her +voice and even the very tone in which she would have addressed +him had they been about to part in the hall of their town house. +She might have been asking him at what time he expected to be +home, while a footman held the door open and the brougham waited +in the street. + +"Not very far. This can't last much longer." Mr. Travers made a +movement as if to leave her exactly as though he were rather +pressed to keep an appointment. "By the by," he said, checking +himself, "I suppose the fellow understands thoroughly that we are +wealthy. He could hardly doubt that." + +"It's the last thought that would enter his head," said Mrs. +Travers. + +"Oh, yes, just so," Mr. Travers allowed a little impatience to +pierce under his casual manner. "But I don't mind telling you +that I have had enough of this. I am prepared to make--ah!--to +make concessions. A large pecuniary sacrifice. Only the whole +position is so absurd! He might conceivably doubt my good faith. +Wouldn't it be just as well if you, with your particular +influence, would hint to him that with me he would have nothing +to fear? I am a man of my word." + +"That is the first thing he would naturally think of any man," +said Mrs. Travers. + +"Will your eyes never be opened?" Mr. Travers began, irritably, +then gave it up. "Well, so much the better then. I give you a +free hand." + +"What made you change your attitude like this?" asked Mrs. +Travers, suspiciously. + +"My regard for you," he answered without hesitation. + +"I intended to join you in your captivity. I was just trying to +persuade him. . . ." + +"I forbid you absolutely," whispered Mr. Travers, forcibly. "I am +glad to get away. I don't want to see you again till your craze +is over." + +She was confounded by his secret vehemence. But instantly +succeeding his fierce whisper came a short, inane society laugh +and a much louder, "Not that I attach any importance . . ." + +He sprang away, as it were, from his wife, and as he went over +the gangway waved his hand to her amiably. + +Lighted dimly by the lantern on the roof of the deckhouse Mrs. +Travers remained very still with lowered head and an aspect of +profound meditation. It lasted but an instant before she moved +off and brushing against Lingard passed on with downcast eyes to +her deck cabin. Lingard heard the door shut. He waited awhile, +made a movement toward the gangway but checked himself and +followed Mrs. Travers into her cabin. + +It was pitch dark in there. He could see absolutely nothing and +was oppressed by the profound stillness unstirred even by the +sound of breathing. + +"I am going on shore," he began, breaking the black and deathlike +silence enclosing him and the invisible woman. "I wanted to say +good-bye." + +"You are going on shore," repeated Mrs. Travers. Her voice was +emotionless, blank, unringing. + +"Yes, for a few hours, or for life," Lingard said in measured +tones. "I may have to die with them or to die maybe for others. +For you, if I only knew how to manage it, I would want to live. I +am telling you this because it is dark. If there had been a light +in here I wouldn't have come in." + +"I wish you had not," uttered the same unringing woman's voice. +"You are always coming to me with those lives and those deaths in +your hand." + +"Yes, it's too much for you," was Lingard's undertoned comment. +"You could be no other than true. And you are innocent! Don't +wish me life, but wish me luck, for you are innocent--and you +will have to take your chance." + +"All luck to you, King Tom," he heard her say in the darkness in +which he seemed now to perceive the gleam of her hair. "I will +take my chance. And try not to come near me again for I am weary +of you." + +"I can well believe it," murmured Lingard, and stepped out of the +cabin, shutting the door after him gently. For half a minute, +perhaps, the stillness continued, and then suddenly the chair +fell over in the darkness. Next moment Mrs. Travers' head +appeared in the light of the lamp left on the roof of the +deckhouse. Her bare arms grasped the door posts. + +"Wait a moment," she said, loudly, into the shadows of the deck. +She heard no footsteps, saw nothing moving except the vanishing +white shape of the late Captain H. C. Jorgenson, who was +indifferent to the life of men. "Wait, King Tom!" she insisted, +raising her voice; then, "I didn't mean it. Don't believe me!" +she cried, recklessly. + +For the second time that night a woman's voice startled the +hearts of men on board the Emma. All except the heart of old +Jorgenson. The Malays in the boat looked up from their thwarts. +D'Alcacer, sitting in the stern sheets beside Lingard, felt a +sinking of his heart. + +"What's this?" he exclaimed. "I heard your name on deck. You are +wanted, I think." + +"Shove off," ordered Lingard, inflexibly, without even looking at +d'Alcacer. Mr. Travers was the only one who didn't seem to be +aware of anything. A long time after the boat left the Emma's +side he leaned toward d'Alcacer. + +"I have a most extraordinary feeling," he said in a cautious +undertone. "I seem to be in the air--I don't know. Are we on the +water, d'Alcacer? Are you quite sure? But of course, we are on +the water." + +"Yes," said d'Alcacer, in the same tone. "Crossing the +Styx--perhaps." He heard Mr. Travers utter an unmoved "Very +likely," which he did not expect. Lingard, his hand on the +tiller, sat like a man of stone. + +"Then your point of view has changed," whispered d'Alcacer. + +"I told my wife to make an offer," went on the earnest whisper of +the other man. "A sum of money. But to tell you the truth I don't +believe very much in its success." + +D'Alcacer made no answer and only wondered whether he didn't like +better Mr. Travers' other, unreasonable mood. There was no +denying the fact that Mr. Travers was a troubling person. Now he +suddenly gripped d'Alcacer's fore-arm and added under his breath: +"I doubt everything. I doubt whether the offer will ever be +made." + +All this was not very impressive. There was something pitiful in +it: whisper, grip, shudder, as of a child frightened in the dark. +But the emotion was deep. Once more that evening, but this time +aroused by the husband's distress, d'Alcacer's wonder approached +the borders of awe. + + + +PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH + +I + +"Have you got King Tom's watch in there?" said a voice that +seemed not to attach the slightest importance to the question. +Jorgenson, outside the door of Mrs. Travers' part of the +deckhouse, waited for the answer. He heard a low cry very much +like a moan, the startled sound of pain that may be sometimes +heard in sick rooms. But it moved him not at all. He would never +have dreamt of opening the door unless told to do so, in which +case he would have beheld, with complete indifference, Mrs. +Travers extended on the floor with her head resting on the edge +of the camp bedstead (on which Lingard had never slept), as +though she had subsided there from a kneeling posture which is +the attitude of prayer, supplication, or defeat. The hours of the +night had passed Mrs. Travers by. After flinging herself on her +knees, she didn't know why, since she could think of nothing to +pray for, had nothing to invoke, and was too far gone for such a +futile thing as despair, she had remained there till the sense of +exhaustion had grown on her to the point in which she lost her +belief in her power to rise. In a half-sitting attitude, her head +resting against the edge of the couch and her arms flung above +her head, she sank into an indifference, the mere resignation of +a worn-out body and a worn-out mind which often is the only sort +of rest that comes to people who are desperately ill and is +welcome enough in a way. The voice of Jorgenson roused her out of +that state. She sat up, aching in every limb and cold all over. + +Jorgenson, behind the door, repeated with lifeless obstinacy: + +"Do you see King Tom's watch in there?" + +Mrs. Travers got up from the floor. She tottered, snatching at +the air, and found the back of the armchair under her hand. + +"Who's there?" + +She was also ready to ask: "Where am I?" but she remembered and +at once became the prey of that active dread which had been lying +dormant for a few hours in her uneasy and prostrate body. "What +time is it?" she faltered out. + +"Dawn," pronounced the imperturbable voice at the door. It seemed +to her that it was a word that could make any heart sink with +apprehension. Dawn! She stood appalled. And the toneless voice +outside the door insisted: + +"You must have Tom's watch there!" + +"I haven't seen it," she cried as if tormented by a dream. + +"Look in that desk thing. If you push open the shutter you will +be able to see." + +Mrs. Travers became aware of the profound darkness of the cabin. +Jorgenson heard her staggering in there. After a moment a woman's +voice, which struck even him as strange, said in faint tones: + +"I have it. It's stopped." + +"It doesn't matter. I don't want to know the time. There should +be a key about. See it anywhere?" + +"Yes, it's fastened to the watch," the dazed voice answered from +within. Jorgenson waited before making his request. "Will you +pass it out to me? There's precious little time left now!" + +The door flew open, which was certainly something Jorgenson had +not expected. He had expected but a hand with the watch protruded +through a narrow crack, But he didn't start back or give any +other sign of surprise at seeing Mrs. Travers fully dressed. +Against the faint clearness in the frame of the open shutter she +presented to him the dark silhouette of her shoulders surmounted +by a sleek head, because her hair was still in the two plaits. To +Jorgenson Mrs. Travers in her un-European dress had always been +displeasing, almost monstrous. Her stature, her gestures, her +general carriage struck his eye as absurdly incongruous with a +Malay costume, too ample, too free, too bold--offensive. To Mrs. +Travers, Jorgenson, in the dusk of the passage, had the aspect of +a dim white ghost, and he chilled her by his ghost's aloofness. + +He picked up the watch from her outspread palm without a word of +thanks, only mumbling in his moustache, "H'm, yes, that's it. I +haven't yet forgotten how to count seconds correctly, but it's +better to have a watch." + +She had not the slightest notion what he meant. And she did not +care. Her mind remained confused and the sense of bodily +discomfort oppressed her. She whispered, shamefacedly, "I believe +I've slept." + +"I haven't," mumbled Jorgenson, growing more and more distinct to +her eyes. The brightness of the short dawn increased rapidly as +if the sun were impatient to look upon the Settlement. "No fear +of that," he added, boastfully. + +It occurred to Mrs. Travers that perhaps she had not slept +either. Her state had been more like an imperfect, +half-conscious, quivering death. She shuddered at the +recollection. + +"What an awful night," she murmured, drearily. + +There was nothing to hope for from Jorgenson. She expected him to +vanish, indifferent, like a phantom of the dead carrying off the +appropriately dead watch in his hand for some unearthly purpose. +Jorgenson didn't move. His was an insensible, almost a senseless +presence! Nothing could be extorted from it. But a wave of +anguish as confused as all her other sensations swept Mrs. +Travers off her feet. + +"Can't you tell me something?" she cried. + +For half a minute perhaps Jorgenson made no sound; then: "For +years I have been telling anybody who cared to ask," he mumbled +in his moustache. "Telling Tom, too. And Tom knew what he wanted +to do. How's one to know what YOU are after?" + +She had never expected to hear so many words from that rigid +shadow. Its monotonous mumble was fascinating, its sudden +loquacity was shocking. And in the profound stillness that +reigned outside it was as if there had been no one left in the +world with her but the phantom of that old adventurer. He was +heard again: "What I could tell you would be worse than poison." + +Mrs. Travers was not familiar with Jorgenson's consecrated +phrases. The mechanical voice, the words themselves, his air of +abstraction appalled her. And he hadn't done yet; she caught some +more of his unconcerned mumbling: "There is nothing I don't +know," and the absurdity of the statement was also appalling. +Mrs. Travers gasped and with a wild little laugh: + +"Then you know why I called after King Tom last night." + +He glanced away along his shoulder through the door of the +deckhouse at the growing brightness of the day. She did so, too. +It was coming. It had come! Another day! And it seemed to Mrs. +Travers a worse calamity than any discovery she had made in her +life, than anything she could have imagined to come to her. The +very magnitude of horror steadied her, seemed to calm her +agitation as some kinds of fatal drugs do before they kill. She +laid a steady hand on Jorgenson's sleeve and spoke quietly, +distinctly, urgently. + +"You were on deck. What I want to know is whether I was heard?" + +"Yes," said Jorgenson, absently, "I heard you." Then, as if +roused a little, he added less mechanically: "The whole ship +heard you." + +Mrs. Travers asked herself whether perchance she had not simply +screamed. It had never occurred to her before that perhaps she +had. At the time it seemed to her she had no strength for more +than a whisper. Had she been really so loud? And the deadly +chill, the night that had gone by her had left in her body, +vanished from her limbs, passed out of her in a flush. Her face +was turned away from the light, and that fact gave her courage to +continue. Moreover, the man before her was so detached from the +shames and prides and schemes of life that he seemed not to count +at all, except that somehow or other he managed at times to catch +the mere literal sense of the words addressed to him--and answer +them. And answer them! Answer unfailingly, impersonally, without +any feeling. + +"You saw Tom--King Tom? Was he there? I mean just then, at the +moment. There was a light at the gangway. Was he on deck?" + +"No. In the boat." + +"Already? Could I have been heard in the boat down there? You say +the whole ship heard me--and I don't care. But could he hear me?" + +"Was it Tom you were after?" said Jorgenson in the tone of a +negligent remark. + +"Can't you answer me?" she cried, angrily. + +"Tom was busy. No child's play. The boat shoved off," said +Jorgenson, as if he were merely thinking aloud. + +"You won't tell me, then?" Mrs. Travers apostrophized him, +fearlessly. She was not afraid of Jorgenson. Just then she was +afraid of nothing and nobody. And Jorgenson went on thinking +aloud. + +"I guess he will be kept busy from now on and so shall I." + +Mrs. Travers seemed ready to take by the shoulders and shake that +dead-voiced spectre till it begged for mercy. But suddenly her +strong white arms fell down by her side, the arms of an exhausted +woman. + +"I shall never, never find out," she whispered to herself. + +She cast down her eyes in intolerable humiliation, in intolerable +desire, as though she had veiled her face. Not a sound reached +the loneliness of her thought. But when she raised her eyes again +Jorgenson was no longer standing before her. + +For an instant she saw him all black in the brilliant and narrow +doorway, and the next moment he had vanished outside, as if +devoured by the hot blaze of light. The sun had risen on the +Shore of Refuge. + +When Mrs. Travers came out on deck herself it was as it were with +a boldly unveiled face, with wide-open and dry, sleepless eyes. +Their gaze, undismayed by the sunshine, sought the innermost +heart of things each day offered to the passion of her dread and +of her impatience. The lagoon, the beach, the colours and the +shapes struck her more than ever as a luminous painting on an +immense cloth hiding the movements of an inexplicable life. She +shaded her eyes with her hand. There were figures on the beach, +moving dark dots on the white semicircle bounded by the +stockades, backed by roof ridges above the palm groves. Further +back the mass of carved white coral on the roof of the mosque +shone like a white day-star. Religion and politics--always +politics! To the left, before Tengga's enclosure, the loom of +fire had changed into a pillar of smoke. But there were some big +trees over there and she couldn't tell whether the night council +had prolonged its sitting. Some vague forms were still moving +there and she could picture them to herself: Daman, the supreme +chief of sea-robbers, with a vengeful heart and the eyes of a +gazelle; Sentot, the sour fanatic with the big turban, that other +saint with a scanty loin cloth and ashes in his hair, and Tengga +whom she could imagine from hearsay, fat, good-tempered, crafty, +but ready to spill blood on his ambitious way and already bold +enough to flaunt a yellow state umbrella at the very gate of +Belarab's stockade--so they said. + +She saw, she imagined, she even admitted now the reality of those +things no longer a mere pageant marshalled for her vision with +barbarous splendour and savage emphasis. She questioned it no +longer--but she did not feel it in her soul any more than one +feels the depth of the sea under its peaceful glitter or the +turmoil of its grey fury. Her eyes ranged afar, unbelieving and +fearful--and then all at once she became aware of the empty Cage +with its interior in disorder, the camp bedsteads not taken away, +a pillow lying on the deck, the dying flame like a shred of dull +yellow stuff inside the lamp left hanging over the table. The +whole struck her as squalid and as if already decayed, a flimsy +and idle phantasy. But Jorgenson, seated on the deck with his +back to it, was not idle. His occupation, too, seemed fantastic +and so truly childish that her heart sank at the man's utter +absorption in it. Jorgenson had before him, stretched on the +deck, several bits of rather thin and dirty-looking rope of +different lengths from a couple of inches to about a foot. He had +(an idiot might have amused himself in that way) set fire to the +ends of them. They smouldered with amazing energy, emitting now +and then a splutter, and in the calm air within the bulwarks sent +up very slender, exactly parallel threads of smoke, each with a +vanishing curl at the end; and the absorption with which +Jorgenson gave himself up to that pastime was enough to shake all +confidence in his sanity. + +In one half-opened hand he was holding the watch. He was also +provided with a scrap of paper and the stump of a pencil. Mrs. +Travers was confident that he did not either hear or see her. + +"Captain Jorgenson, you no doubt think. . . ." + +He tried to wave her away with the stump of the pencil. He did +not want to be interrupted in his strange occupation. He was +playing very gravely indeed with those bits of string. "I lighted +them all together," he murmured, keeping one eye on the dial of +the watch. Just then the shortest piece of string went out, +utterly consumed. Jorgenson made a hasty note and remained still +while Mrs. Travers looked at him with stony eyes thinking that +nothing in the world was any use. The other threads of smoke went +on vanishing in spirals before the attentive Jorgenson. + +"What are you doing?" asked Mrs. Travers, drearily. + +"Timing match . . . precaution. . . ." + +He had never in Mrs. Travers' experience been less spectral than +then. He displayed a weakness of the flesh. He was impatient at +her intrusion. He divided his attention between the threads of +smoke and the face of the watch with such interest that the +sudden reports of several guns breaking for the first time for +days the stillness of the lagoon and the illusion of the painted +scene failed to make him raise his head. He only jerked it +sideways a little. Mrs. Travers stared at the wisps of white +vapour floating above Belarab's stockade. The series of sharp +detonations ceased and their combined echoes came back over the +lagoon like a long-drawn and rushing sigh. + +"What's this?" cried Mrs. Travers. + +"Belarab's come home," said Jorgenson. + +The last thread of smoke disappeared and Jorgenson got up. He had +lost all interest in the watch and thrust it carelessly into his +pocket, together with the bit of paper and the stump of pencil. +He had resumed his aloofness from the life of men, but +approaching the bulwark he condescended to look toward Belarab's +stockade. + +"Yes, he is home," he said very low. + +''What's going to happen?" cried Mrs. Travers. "What's to be +done?" Jorgenson kept up his appearance of communing with +himself. + +"I know what to do," he mumbled. + +"You are lucky," said Mrs. Travers, with intense bitterness. + +It seemed to her that she was abandoned by all the world. The +opposite shore of the lagoon had resumed its aspect of a painted +scene that would never roll up to disclose the truth behind its +blinding and soulless splendour. It seemed to her that she had +said her last words to all of them: to d'Alcacer, to her husband, +to Lingard himself--and that they had all gone behind the curtain +forever out of her sight. Of all the white men Jorgenson alone +was left, that man who had done with life so completely that his +mere presence robbed it of all heat and mystery, leaving nothing +but its terrible, its revolting insignificance. And Mrs. Travers +was ready for revolt. She cried with suppressed passion: + +"Are you aware, Captain Jorgenson, that I am alive?" + +He turned his eyes on her, and for a moment she was daunted by +their cold glassiness. But before they could drive her away, +something like the gleam of a spark gave them an instant's +animation. + +"I want to go and join them. I want to go ashore," she said, +firmly. "There!" + +Her bare and extended arm pointed across the lagoon, and +Jorgenson's resurrected eyes glided along the white limb and +wandered off into space. + +"No boat," he muttered. + +"There must be a canoe. I know there is a canoe. I want it." + +She stepped forward compelling, commanding, trying to concentrate +in her glance all her will power, the sense of her own right to +dispose of herself and her claim to be served to the last moment +of her life. It was as if she had done nothing. Jorgenson didn't +flinch. + +"Which of them are you after?" asked his blank, unringing voice. + +She continued to look at him; her face had stiffened into a +severe mask; she managed to say distinctly: + +"I suppose you have been asking yourself that question for some +time, Captain Jorgenson?" + +"No. I am asking you now." + +His face disclosed nothing to Mrs. Travers' bold and weary eyes. +"What could you do over there?" Jorgenson added as merciless, as +irrepressible, and sincere as though he were the embodiment of +that inner voice that speaks in all of us at times and, like +Jorgenson, is offensive and difficult to answer. + +"Remember that I am not a shadow but a living woman still, +Captain Jorgenson. I can live and I can die. Send me over to +share their fate." + +"Sure you would like?" asked the roused Jorgenson in a voice that +had an unexpected living quality, a faint vibration which no man +had known in it for years. "There may be death in it," he +mumbled, relapsing into indifference. + +"Who cares?" she said, recklessly. "All I want is to ask Tom a +question and hear his answer. That's what I would like. That's +what I must have." + + + +II + +Along the hot and gloomy forest path, neglected, overgrown and +strangled in the fierce life of the jungle, there came a faint +rustle of leaves. Jaffir, the servant of princes, the messenger +of great men, walked, stooping, with a broad chopper in his hand. +He was naked from the waist upward, his shoulders and arms were +scratched and bleeding. A multitude of biting insects made a +cloud about his head. He had lost his costly and ancient +head-kerchief, and when in a slightly wider space he stopped in a +listening attitude anybody would have taken him for a fugitive. + +He waved his arms about, slapping his shoulders, the sides of his +head, his heaving flanks; then, motionless, listened again for a +while. A sound of firing, not so much made faint by distance as +muffled by the masses of foliage, reached his ears, dropping +shots which he could have counted if he had cared to. "There is +fighting in the forest already," he thought. Then putting his +head low in the tunnel of vegetation he dashed forward out of the +horrible cloud of flies, which he actually managed for an instant +to leave behind him. But it was not from the cruelty of insects +that he was flying, for no man could hope to drop that escort, +and Jaffir in his life of a faithful messenger had been +accustomed, if such an extravagant phrase may be used, to be +eaten alive. Bent nearly double he glided and dodged between the +trees, through the undergrowth, his brown body streaming with +sweat, his firm limbs gleaming like limbs of imperishable bronze +through the mass of green leaves that are forever born and +forever dying. For all his desperate haste he was no longer a +fugitive; he was simply a man in a tremendous hurry. His flight, +which had begun with a bound and a rush and a general display of +great presence of mind, was a simple issue from a critical +situation. Issues from critical situations are generally simple +if one is quick enough to think of them in time. He became aware +very soon that the attempt to pursue him had been given up, but +he had taken the forest path and had kept up his pace because he +had left his Rajah and the lady Immada beset by enemies on the +edge of the forest, as good as captives to a party of Tengga's +men. + +Belarab's hesitation had proved too much even for Hassim's +hereditary patience in such matters. It is but becoming that +weighty negotiations should be spread over many days, that the +same requests and arguments should be repeated in the same words, +at many successive interviews, and receive the same evasive +answers. Matters of state demand the dignity of such a procedure +as if time itself had to wait on the power and wisdom of rulers. +Such are the proceedings of embassies and the dignified patience +of envoys. But at this time of crisis Hassim's impatience +obtained the upper hand; and though he never departed from the +tradition of soft speech and restrained bearing while following +with his sister in the train of the pious Belarab, he had his +moments of anger, of anxiety, of despondency. His friendships, +his future, his country's destinies were at stake, while +Belarab's camp wandered deviously over the back country as if +influenced by the vacillation of the ruler's thought, the very +image of uncertain fate. + +Often no more than the single word "Good" was all the answer +vouchsafed to Hassim's daily speeches. The lesser men, companions +of the Chief, treated him with deference; but Hassim could feel +the opposition from the women's side of the camp working against +his cause in subservience to the mere caprice of the new wife, a +girl quite gentle and kind to her dependents, but whose +imagination had run away with her completely and had made her +greedy for the loot of the yacht from mere simplicity and +innocence. What could Hassim, that stranger, wandering and poor, +offer for her acceptance? Nothing. The wealth of his far-off +country was but an idle tale, the talk of an exile looking for +help. + +At night Hassim had to listen to the anguished doubts of Immada, +the only companion of his life, child of the same mother, brave +as a man, but in her fears a very woman. She whispered them to +him far into the night while the camp of the great Belarab was +hushed in sleep and the fires had sunk down to mere glowing +embers. Hassim soothed her gravely. But he, too, was a native of +Wajo where men are more daring and quicker of mind than other +Malays. More energetic, too, and energy does not go without an +inner fire. Hassim lost patience and one evening he declared to +his sister Immada: "To-morrow we leave this ruler without a mind +and go back to our white friend." + +Therefore next morning, letting the camp move on the direct road +to the settlement, Hassim and Immada took a course of their own. +It was a lonely path between the jungle and the clearings. They +had two attendants with them, Hassim's own men, men of Wajo; and +so the lady Immada, when she had a mind to, could be carried, +after the manner of the great ladies of Wajo who need not put +foot to the ground unless they like. The lady Immada, accustomed +to the hardships that are the lot of exiles, preferred to walk, +but from time to time she let herself be carried for a short +distance out of regard for the feelings of her attendants. The +party made good time during the early hours, and Hassim expected +confidently to reach before evening the shore of the lagoon at a +spot very near the stranded Emma. At noon they rested in the +shade near a dark pool within the edge of the forest; and it was +there that Jaffir met them, much to his and their surprise. It +was the occasion of a long talk. Jaffir, squatting on his heels, +discoursed in measured tones. He had entranced listeners. The +story of Carter's exploit amongst the Shoals had not reached +Belarab's camp. It was a great shock to Hassim, but the sort of +half smile with which he had been listening to Jaffir never +altered its character. It was the Princess Immada who cried out +in distress and wrung her hands. A deep silence fell. + +Indeed, before the fatal magnitude of the fact it seemed even to +those Malays that there was nothing to say and Jaffir, lowering +his head, respected his Prince's consternation. Then, before that +feeling could pass away from that small group of people seated +round a few smouldering sticks, the noisy approach of a large +party of men made them all leap to their feet. Before they could +make another movement they perceived themselves discovered. The +men were armed as if bound on some warlike expedition. Amongst +them Sentot, in his loin cloth and with unbound wild locks, +capered and swung his arms about like the lunatic he was. The +others' astonishment made them halt, but their attitude was +obviously hostile. In the rear a portly figure flanked by two +attendants carrying swords was approaching prudently. Rajah +Hassim resumed quietly his seat on the trunk of a fallen tree, +Immada rested her hand lightly on her brother's shoulder, and +Jaffir, squatting down again, looked at the ground with all his +faculties and every muscle of his body tensely on the alert. + +"Tengga's fighters," he murmured, scornfully. + +In the group somebody shouted, and was answered by shouts from +afar. There could be no thought of resistance. Hassim slipped the +emerald ring from his finger stealthily and Jaffir got hold of it +by an almost imperceptible movement. The Rajah did not even look +at the trusty messenger. + +"Fail not to give it to the white man," he murmured. "Thy servant +hears, O Rajah. It's a charm of great power." + +The shadows were growing to the westward. Everybody was silent, +and the shifting group of armed men seemed to have drifted +closer. Immada, drawing the end of a scarf across her face, +confronted the advance with only one eye exposed. On the flank of +the armed men Sentot was performing a slow dance but he, too, +seemed to have gone dumb. + +"Now go," breathed out Rajah Hassim, his gaze levelled into space +immovably. + +For a second or more Jaffir did not stir, then with a sudden leap +from his squatting posture he flew through the air and struck the +jungle in a great commotion of leaves, vanishing instantly like a +swimmer diving from on high. A deep murmur of surprise arose in +the armed party, a spear was thrown, a shot was fired, three or +four men dashed into the forest, but they soon returned +crestfallen with apologetic smiles; while Jaffir, striking an old +path that seemed to lead in the right direction, ran on in +solitude, raising a rustle of leaves, with a naked parang in his +hand and a cloud of flies about his head. The sun declining to +the westward threw shafts of light across his dark path. He ran +at a springy half-trot, his eyes watchful, his broad chest +heaving, and carrying the emerald ring on the forefinger of a +clenched hand as though he were afraid it should slip off, fly +off, be torn from him by an invisible force, or spirited away by +some enchantment. Who could tell what might happen? There were +evil forces at work in the world, powerful incantations, horrible +apparitions. The messenger of princes and of great men, charged +with the supreme appeal of his master, was afraid in the +deepening shade of the forest. Evil presences might have been +lurking in that gloom. Still the sun had not set yet. He could +see its face through the leaves as he skirted the shore of the +lagoon. But what if Allah's call should come to him suddenly and +he die as he ran! + +He drew a long breath on the shore of the lagoon within about a +hundred yards from the stranded bows of the Emma. The tide was +out and he walked to the end of a submerged log and sent out a +hail for a boat. Jorgenson's voice answered. The sun had sunk +behind the forest belt of the coast. All was still as far as the +eye could reach over the black water. A slight breeze came along +it and Jaffir on the brink, waiting for a canoe, shivered a +little. + +At the same moment Carter, exhausted by thirty hours of +uninterrupted toil at the head of whites and Malays in getting +the yacht afloat, dropped into Mrs. Travers' deck chair, on board +the Hermit, said to the devoted Wasub: "Let a good watch be kept +to-night, old man," glanced contentedly at the setting sun and +fell asleep. + + + +III + +There was in the bows of the Emma an elevated grating over the +heel of her bowsprit whence the eye could take in the whole range +of her deck and see every movement of her crew. It was a spot +safe from eaves-droppers, though, of course, exposed to view. The +sun had just set on the supreme content of Carter when Jorgenson +and Jaffir sat down side by side between the knightheads of the +Emma and, public but unapproachable, impressive and secret, began +to converse in low tones. + +Every Wajo fugitive who manned the hulk felt the approach of a +decisive moment. Their minds were made up and their hearts beat +steadily. They were all desperate men determined to fight and to +die and troubling not about the manner of living or dying. This +was not the case with Mrs. Travers who, having shut herself up in +the deckhouse, was profoundly troubled about those very things, +though she, too, felt desperate enough to welcome almost any +solution. + +Of all the people on board she alone did not know anything of +that conference. In her deep and aimless thinking she had only +become aware of the absence of the slightest sound on board the +Emma. Not a rustle, not a footfall. The public view of Jorgenson +and Jaffir in deep consultation had the effect of taking all wish +to move from every man. + +Twilight enveloped the two figures forward while they talked, +looking in the stillness of their pose like carved figures of +European and Asiatic contrasted in intimate contact. The +deepening dusk had nearly effaced them when at last they rose +without warning, as it were, and thrilling the heart of the +beholders by the sudden movement. But they did not separate at +once. They lingered in their high place as if awaiting the fall +of complete darkness, a fit ending to their mysterious communion. +Jaffir had given Jorgenson the whole story of the ring, the +symbol of a friendship matured and confirmed on the night of +defeat, on the night of flight from a far-distant land sleeping +unmoved under the wrath and fire of heaven. + +"Yes, Tuan," continued Jaffir, "it was first sent out to the +white man, on a night of mortal danger, a present to remember a +friend by. I was the bearer of it then even as I am now. Then, as +now, it was given to me and I was told to save myself and hand +the ring over in confirmation of my message. I did so and that +white man seemed to still the very storm to save my Rajah. He was +not one to depart and forget him whom he had once called his +friend. My message was but a message of good-bye, but the charm +of the ring was strong enough to draw all the power of that white +man to the help of my master. Now I have no words to say. Rajah +Hassim asks for nothing. But what of that? By the mercy of Allah +all things are the same, the compassion of the Most High, the +power of the ring, the heart of the white man. Nothing is +changed, only the friendship is a little older and love has grown +because of the shared dangers and long companionship. Therefore, +Tuan, I have no fear. But how am I to get the ring to the Rajah +Laut? Just hand it to him. The last breath would be time enough +if they were to spear me at his feet. But alas! the bush is full +of Tengga's men, the beach is open and I could never even hope to +reach the gate." + +Jorgenson, with his hands deep in the pockets of his tunic, +listened, looking down. Jaffir showed as much consternation as +his nature was capable of. + +"Our refuge is with God," he murmured. "But what is to be done? +Has your wisdom no stratagem, O Tuan?" + +Jorgenson did not answer. It appeared as though he had no +stratagem. But God is great and Jaffir waited on the other's +immobility, anxious but patient, perplexed yet hopeful in his +grim way, while the night flowing on from the dark forest near by +hid their two figures from the sight of observing men. Before the +silence of Jorgenson Jaffir began to talk practically. Now that +Tengga had thrown off the mask Jaffir did not think that he could +land on the beach without being attacked, captured, nay killed, +since a man like he, though he could save himself by taking +flight at the order of his master, could not be expected to +surrender without a fight. He mentioned that in the exercise of +his important functions he knew how to glide like a shadow, creep +like a snake, and almost burrow his way underground. He was +Jaffir who had never been foiled. No bog, morass, great river or +jungle could stop him. He would have welcomed them. In many +respects they were the friends of a crafty messenger. But that +was an open beach, and there was no other way, and as things +stood now every bush around, every tree trunk, every deep shadow +of house or fence would conceal Tengga's men or such of Daman's +infuriated partisans as had already made their way to the +Settlement. How could he hope to traverse the distance between +the water's edge and Belarab's gate which now would remain shut +night and day? Not only himself but anybody from the Emma would +be sure to be rushed upon and speared in twenty places. + +He reflected for a moment in silence. + +"Even you, Tuan, could not accomplish the feat." + +"True," muttered Jorgenson. + +When, after a period of meditation, he looked round, Jaffir was +no longer by his side. He had descended from the high place and +was probably squatting on his heels in some dark nook on the fore +deck. Jorgenson knew Jaffir too well to suppose that he would go +to sleep. He would sit there thinking himself into a state of +fury, then get away from the Emma in some way or other, go ashore +and perish fighting. He would, in fact, run amok; for it looked +as if there could be no way out of the situation. Then, of +course, Lingard would know nothing of Hassim and Immada's +captivity for the ring would never reach him--the ring that could +tell its own tale. No, Lingard would know nothing. He would know +nothing about anybody outside Belarab's stockade till the end +came, whatever the end might be, for all those people that lived +the life of men. Whether to know or not to know would be good for +Lingard Jorgenson could not tell. He admitted to himself that +here there was something that he, Jorgenson, could not tell. All +the possibilities were wrapped up in doubt, uncertain, like all +things pertaining to the life of men. It was only when giving a +short thought to himself that Jorgenson had no doubt. He, of +course, would know what to do. + +On the thin face of that old adventurer hidden in the night not a +feature moved, not a muscle twitched, as he descended in his turn +and walked aft along the decks of the Emma. His faded eyes, which +had seen so much, did not attempt to explore the night, they +never gave a glance to the silent watchers against whom he +brushed. Had a light been flashed on him suddenly he would have +appeared like a man walking in his sleep: the somnambulist of an +eternal dream. Mrs. Travers heard his footsteps pass along the +side of the deckhouse. She heard them--and let her head fall +again on her bare arms thrown over the little desk before which +she sat. + +Jorgenson, standing by the taffrail, noted the faint reddish glow +in the massive blackness of the further shore. Jorgenson noted +things quickly, cursorily, perfunctorily, as phenomena unrelated +to his own apparitional existence of a visiting ghost. They were +but passages in the game of men who were still playing at life. +He knew too well how much that game was worth to be concerned +about its course. He had given up the habit of thinking for so +long that the sudden resumption of it irked him exceedingly, +especially as he had to think on toward a conclusion. In that +world of eternal oblivion, of which he had tasted before Lingard +made him step back into the life of men, all things were settled +once for all. He was irritated by his own perplexity which was +like a reminder of that mortality made up of questions and +passions from which he had fancied he had freed himself forever. +By a natural association his contemptuous annoyance embraced the +existence of Mrs. Travers, too, for how could he think of Tom +Lingard, of what was good or bad for King Tom, without thinking +also of that woman who had managed to put the ghost of a spark +even into his own extinguished eyes? She was of no account; but +Tom's integrity was. It was of Tom that he had to think, of what +was good or bad for Tom in that absurd and deadly game of his +life. Finally he reached the conclusion that to be given the ring +would be good for Tom Lingard. Just to be given the ring and no +more. The ring and no more. + +"It will help him to make up his mind," muttered Jorgenson in his +moustache, as if compelled by an obscure conviction. It was only +then that he stirred slightly and turned away from the loom of +the fires on the distant shore. Mrs. Travers heard his footsteps +passing again along the side of the deckhouse--and this time +never raised her head. That man was sleepless, mad, childish, and +inflexible. He was impossible. He haunted the decks of that hulk +aimlessly. . . . + +It was, however, in pursuance of a very distinct aim that +Jorgenson had gone forward again to seek Jaffir. + +The first remark he had to offer to Jaffir's consideration was +that the only person in the world who had the remotest chance of +reaching Belarab's gate on that night was that tall white woman +the Rajah Laut had brought on board, the wife of one of the +captive white chiefs. Surprise made Jaffir exclaim, but he wasn't +prepared to deny that. It was possible that for many reasons, +some quite simple and others very subtle, those sons of the Evil +One belonging to Tengga and Daman would refrain from killing a +white woman walking alone from the water's edge to Belarab's +gate. Yes, it was just possible that she might walk unharmed. + +"Especially if she carried a blazing torch," muttered Jorgenson +in his moustache. He told Jaffir that she was sitting now in the +dark, mourning silently in the manner of white women. She had +made a great outcry in the morning to be allowed to join the +white men on shore. He, Jorgenson, had refused her the canoe. +Ever since she had secluded herself in the deckhouse in great +distress. + +Jaffir listened to it all without particular sympathy. And when +Jorgenson added, "It is in my mind, O Jaffir, to let her have her +will now," he answered by a "Yes, by Allah! let her go. What does +it matter?" of the greatest unconcern, till Jorgenson added: + +"Yes. And she may carry the ring to the Rajah Laut." + +Jorgenson saw Jaffir, the grim and impassive Jaffir, give a +perceptible start. It seemed at first an impossible task to +persuade Jaffir to part with the ring. The notion was too +monstrous to enter his mind, to move his heart. But at last he +surrendered in an awed whisper, "God is great. Perhaps it is her +destiny." + +Being a Wajo man he did not regard women as untrustworthy or +unequal to a task requiring courage and judgment. Once he got +over the personal feeling he handed the ring to Jorgenson with +only one reservation, "You know, Tuan, that she must on no +account put it on her finger." + +"Let her hang it round her neck," suggested Jorgenson, readily. + +As Jorgenson moved toward the deckhouse it occurred to him that +perhaps now that woman Tom Lingard had taken in tow might take it +into her head to refuse to leave the Emma. This did not disturb +him very much. All those people moved in the dark. He himself at +that particular moment was moving in the dark. Beyond the simple +wish to guide Lingard's thought in the direction of Hassim and +Immada, to help him to make up his mind at last to a ruthless +fidelity to his purpose Jorgenson had no other aim. The existence +of those whites had no meaning on earth. They were the sort of +people that pass without leaving footprints. That woman would +have to act in ignorance. And if she refused to go then in +ignorance she would have to stay on board. He would tell her +nothing. + +As a matter of fact, he discovered that Mrs. Travers would simply +have nothing to do with him. She would not listen to what he had +to say. She desired him, a mere weary voice confined in the +darkness of the deck cabin, to go away and trouble her no more. +But the ghost of Jorgenson was not easily exorcised. He, too, was +a mere voice in the outer darkness, inexorable, insisting that +she should come out on deck and listen. At last he found the +right words to say. + +"It is something about Tom that I want to tell you. You wish him +well, don't you?" + +After this she could not refuse to come out on deck, and once +there she listened patiently to that white ghost muttering and +mumbling above her drooping head. + +"It seems to me, Captain Jorgenson," she said after he had +ceased, "that you are simply trifling with me. After your +behaviour to me this morning, I can have nothing to say to you." + +"I have a canoe for you now," mumbled Jorgenson. + +"You have some new purpose in view now," retorted Mrs. Travers +with spirit. "But you won't make it clear to me. What is it that +you have in your mind?" + +"Tom's interest." + +"Are you really his friend?" + +"He brought me here. You know it. He has talked a lot to you." + +"He did. But I ask myself whether you are capable of being +anybody's friend." + +"You ask yourself!" repeated Jorgenson, very quiet and morose. +"If I am not his friend I should like to know who is." + +Mrs. Travers asked, quickly: "What's all this about a ring? What +ring?" + +"Tom's property. He has had it for years." + +"And he gave it to you? Doesn't he care for it?" + +"Don't know. It's just a thing." + +"But it has a meaning as between you and him. Is that so?" + +"Yes. It has. He will know what it means." + +"What does it mean?" + +"I am too much his friend not to hold my tongue." + +"What! To me!" + +"And who are you?" was Jorgenson's unexpected remark. "He has +told you too much already." + +"Perhaps he has," whispered Mrs. Travers, as if to herself. "And +you want that ring to be taken to him?" she asked, in a louder +tone. + +"Yes. At once. For his good." + +"Are you certain it is for his good? Why can't you. . . ." + +She checked herself. That man was hopeless. He would never tell +anything and there was no means of compelling him. He was +invulnerable, unapproachable. . . . He was dead. + +"Just give it to him," mumbled Jorgenson as though pursuing a +mere fixed idea. "Just slip it quietly into his hand. He will +understand." + +"What is it? Advice, warning, signal for action?" + +"It may be anything," uttered Jorgenson, morosely, but as it were +in a mollified tone. "It's meant for his good." + +"Oh, if I only could trust that man!" mused Mrs. Travers, half +aloud. + +Jorgenson's slight noise in the throat might have been taken for +an expression of sympathy. But he remained silent. + +"Really, this is most extraordinary!" cried Mrs. Travers, +suddenly aroused. "Why did you come to me? Why should it be my +task? Why should you want me specially to take it to him?" + +"I will tell you why," said Jorgenson's blank voice. "It's +because there is no one on board this hulk that can hope to get +alive inside that stockade. This morning you told me yourself +that you were ready to die--for Tom--or with Tom. Well, risk it +then. You are the only one that has half a chance to get through- +-and Tom, maybe, is waiting." + +"The only one," repeated Mrs. Travers with an abrupt movement +forward and an extended hand before which Jorgenson stepped back +a pace. "Risk it! Certainly! Where's that mysterious ring?" + +"I have got it in my pocket," said Jorgenson, readily; yet nearly +half a minute elapsed before Mrs. Travers felt the characteristic +shape being pressed into her half-open palm. "Don't let anybody +see it," Jorgenson admonished her in a murmur. "Hide it somewhere +about you. Why not hang it round your neck?" + +Mrs. Travers' hand remained firmly closed on the ring. "Yes, that +will do," she murmured, hastily. "I'll be back in a moment. Get +everything ready." With those words she disappeared inside the +deckhouse and presently threads of light appeared in the +interstices of the boards. Mrs. Travers had lighted a candle in +there. She was busy hanging that ring round her neck. She was +going. Yes--taking the risk for Tom's sake. + +"Nobody can resist that man," Jorgenson muttered to himself with +increasing moroseness. "_I_ couldn't." + + +IV + +Jorgenson, after seeing the canoe leave the ship's side, ceased +to live intellectually. There was no need for more thinking, for +any display of mental ingenuity. He had done with it all. All his +notions were perfectly fixed and he could go over them in the +same ghostly way in which he haunted the deck of the Emma. At the +sight of the ring Lingard would return to Hassim and Immada, now +captives, too, though Jorgenson certainly did not think them in +any serious danger. What had happened really was that Tengga was +now holding hostages, and those Jorgenson looked upon as +Lingard's own people. They were his. He had gone in with them +deep, very deep. They had a hold and a claim on King Tom just as +many years ago people of that very race had had a hold and a +claim on him, Jorgenson. Only Tom was a much bigger man. A very +big man. Nevertheless, Jorgenson didn't see why he should escape +his own fate--Jorgenson's fate--to be absorbed, captured, made +their own either in failure or in success. It was an unavoidable +fatality and Jorgenson felt certain that the ring would compel +Lingard to face it without flinching. What he really wanted +Lingard to do was to cease to take the slightest interest in +those whites--who were the sort of people that left no +footprints. + +Perhaps at first sight, sending that woman to Lingard was not the +best way toward that end. Jorgenson, however, had a distinct +impression in which his morning talk with Mrs. Travers had only +confirmed him, that those two had quarrelled for good. As, +indeed, was unavoidable. What did Tom Lingard want with any +woman? The only woman in Jorgenson's life had come in by way of +exchange for a lot of cotton stuffs and several brass guns. This +fact could not but affect Jorgenson's judgment since obviously in +this case such a transaction was impossible. Therefore the case +was not serious. It didn't exist. What did exist was Lingard's +relation to the Wajo exiles, a great and warlike adventure such +as no rover in those seas had ever attempted. + +That Tengga was much more ready to negotiate than to fight, the +old adventurer had not the slightest doubt. How Lingard would +deal with him was not a concern of Jorgenson's. That would be +easy enough. Nothing prevented Lingard from going to see Tengga +and talking to him with authority. All that ambitious person +really wanted was to have a share in Lingard's wealth, in +Lingard's power, in Lingard's friendship. A year before Tengga +had once insinuated to Jorgenson, "In what way am I less worthy +of being a friend than Belarab?" + +It was a distinct overture, a disclosure of the man's innermost +mind. Jorgenson, of course, had met it with a profound silence. +His task was not diplomacy but the care of stores. + +After the effort of connected mental processes in order to bring +about Mrs. Travers' departure he was anxious to dismiss the whole +matter from his mind. The last thought he gave to it was severely +practical. It occurred to him that it would be advisable to +attract in some way or other Lingard's attention to the lagoon. +In the language of the sea a single rocket is properly a signal +of distress, but, in the circumstances, a group of three sent up +simultaneously would convey a warning. He gave his orders and +watched the rockets go up finely with a trail of red sparks, a +bursting of white stars high up in the air, and three loud +reports in quick succession. Then he resumed his pacing of the +whole length of the hulk, confident that after this Tom would +guess that something was up and set a close watch over the +lagoon. No doubt these mysterious rockets would have a disturbing +effect on Tengga and his friends and cause a great excitement in +the Settlement; but for that Jorgenson did not care. The +Settlement was already in such a turmoil that a little more +excitement did not matter. What Jorgenson did not expect, +however, was the sound of a musket-shot fired from the jungle +facing the bows of the Emma. It caused him to stop dead short. He +had heard distinctly the bullet strike the curve of the bow +forward. "Some hot-headed ass fired that," he said to himself, +contemptuously. It simply disclosed to him the fact that he was +already besieged on the shore side and set at rest his doubts as +to the length Tengga was prepared to go. Any length! Of course +there was still time for Tom to put everything right with six +words, unless . . . Jorgenson smiled, grimly, in the dark and +resumed his tireless pacing. + +What amused him was to observe the fire which had been burning +night and day before Tengga's residence suddenly extinguished. He +pictured to himself the wild rush with bamboo buckets to the +lagoon shore, the confusion, the hurry and jostling in a great +hissing of water midst clouds of steam. The image of the fat +Tengga's consternation appealed to Jorgenson's sense of humour +for about five seconds. Then he took up the binoculars from the +roof of the deckhouse. + +The bursting of the three white stars over the lagoon had given +him a momentary glimpse of the black speck of the canoe taking +over Mrs. Travers. He couldn't find it again with the glass, it +was too dark; but the part of the shore for which it was steered +would be somewhere near the angle of Belarab's stockade nearest +to the beach. This Jorgenson could make out in the faint rosy +glare of fires burning inside. Jorgenson was certain that Lingard +was looking toward the Emma through the most convenient loophole +he could find. + +As obviously Mrs. Travers could not have paddled herself across, +two men were taking her over; and for the steersman she had +Jaffir. Though he had assented to Jorgenson's plan Jaffir was +anxious to accompany the ring as near as possible to its +destination. Nothing but dire necessity had induced him to part +with the talisman. Crouching in the stern and flourishing his +paddle from side to side he glared at the back of the canvas +deck-chair which had been placed in the middle for Mrs. Travers. +Wrapped up in the darkness she reclined in it with her eyes +closed, faintly aware of the ring hung low on her breast. As the +canoe was rather large it was moving very slowly. The two men +dipped their paddles without a splash: and surrendering herself +passively, in a temporary relaxation of all her limbs, to this +adventure Mrs. Travers had no sense of motion at all. She, too, +like Jorgenson, was tired of thinking. She abandoned herself to +the silence of that night full of roused passions and deadly +purposes. She abandoned herself to an illusory feeling; to the +impression that she was really resting. For the first time in +many days she could taste the relief of being alone. The men with +her were less than nothing. She could not speak to them; she +could not understand them; the canoe might have been moving by +enchantment--if it did move at all. Like a half-conscious sleeper +she was on the verge of saying to herself, "What a strange dream +I am having." + +The low tones of Jaffir's voice stole into it quietly telling the +men to cease paddling, and the long canoe came to a rest slowly, +no more than ten yards from the beach. The party had been +provided with a torch which was to be lighted before the canoe +touched the shore, thus giving a character of openness to this +desperate expedition. "And if it draws fire on us," Jaffir had +commented to Jorgenson, "well, then, we shall see whose fate it +is to die on this night." + +"Yes," had muttered Jorgenson. "We shall see." + +Jorgenson saw at last the small light of the torch against the +blackness of the stockade. He strained his hearing for a possible +volley of musketry fire but no sound came to him over the broad +surface of the lagoon. Over there the man with the torch, the +other paddler, and Jaffir himself impelling with a gentle motion +of his paddle the canoe toward the shore, had the glistening +eyeballs and the tense faces of silent excitement. The ruddy +glare smote Mrs. Travers' closed eyelids but she didn't open her +eyes till she felt the canoe touch the strand. The two men leaped +instantly out of it. Mrs. Travers rose, abruptly. Nobody made a +sound. She stumbled out of the canoe on to the beach and almost +before she had recovered her balance the torch was thrust into +her hand. The heat, the nearness of the blaze confused and +blinded her till, instinctively, she raised the torch high above +her head. For a moment she stood still, holding aloft the fierce +flame from which a few sparks were falling slowly. + +A naked bronze arm lighted from above pointed out the direction +and Mrs. Travers began to walk toward the featureless black mass +of the stockade. When after a few steps she looked back over her +shoulder, the lagoon, the beach, the canoe, the men she had just +left had become already invisible. She was alone bearing up a +blazing torch on an earth that was a dumb shadow shifting under +her feet. At last she reached firmer ground and the dark length +of the palisade untouched as yet by the light of the torch seemed +to her immense, intimidating. She felt ready to drop from sheer +emotion. But she moved on. + +"A little more to the left," shouted a strong voice. + +It vibrated through all her fibres, rousing like the call of a +trumpet, went far beyond her, filled all the space. Mrs. Travers +stood still for a moment, then casting far away from her the +burning torch ran forward blindly with her hands extended toward +the great sound of Lingard's voice, leaving behind her the light +flaring and spluttering on the ground. She stumbled and was only +saved from a fall by her hands coming in contact with the rough +stakes. The stockade rose high above her head and she clung to it +with widely open arms, pressing her whole body against the rugged +surface of that enormous and unscalable palisade. She heard +through it low voices inside, heavy thuds; and felt at every blow +a slight vibration of the ground under her feet. She glanced +fearfully over her shoulder and saw nothing in the darkness but +the expiring glow of the torch she had thrown away and the sombre +shimmer of the lagoon bordering the opaque darkness of the shore. +Her strained eyeballs seemed to detect mysterious movements in +the darkness and she gave way to irresistible terror, to a +shrinking agony of apprehension. Was she to be transfixed by a +broad blade, to the high, immovable wall of wood against which +she was flattening herself desperately, as though she could hope +to penetrate it by the mere force of her fear? She had no idea +where she was, but as a matter of fact she was a little to the +left of the principal gate and almost exactly under one of the +loopholes of the stockade. Her excessive anguish passed into +insensibility. She ceased to hear, to see, and even to feel the +contact of the surface to which she clung. Lingard's voice +somewhere from the sky above her head was directing her, +distinct, very close, full of concern. + +"You must stoop low. Lower yet." + +The stagnant blood of her body began to pulsate languidly. She +stooped low--lower yet--so low that she had to sink on her knees, +and then became aware of a faint smell of wood smoke mingled with +the confused murmur of agitated voices. This came to her through +an opening no higher than her head in her kneeling posture, and +no wider than the breadth of two stakes. Lingard was saying in a +tone of distress: + +"I couldn't get any of them to unbar the gate." + +She was unable to make a sound.--"Are you there?" Lingard asked, +anxiously, so close to her now that she seemed to feel the very +breath of his words on her face. It revived her completely; she +understood what she had to do. She put her head and shoulders +through the opening, was at once seized under the arms by an +eager grip and felt herself pulled through with an irresistible +force and with such haste that her scarf was dragged off her +head, its fringes having caught in the rough timber. The same +eager grip lifted her up, stood her on her feet without her +having to make any exertion toward that end. She became aware +that Lingard was trying to say something, but she heard only a +confused stammering expressive of wonder and delight in which she +caught the words "You . . . you . . . " deliriously repeated. +He didn't release his hold of her; his helpful and irresistible +grip had changed into a close clasp, a crushing embrace, the +violent taking possession by an embodied force that had broken +loose and was not to be controlled any longer. As his great voice +had done a moment before, his great strength, too, seemed able to +fill all space in its enveloping and undeniable authority. Every +time she tried instinctively to stiffen herself against its +might, it reacted, affirming its fierce will, its uplifting +power. Several times she lost the feeling of the ground and had a +sensation of helplessness without fear, of triumph without +exultation. The inevitable had come to pass. She had foreseen +it--and all the time in that dark place and against the red glow +of camp fires within the stockade the man in whose arms she +struggled remained shadowy to her eyes--to her half-closed eyes. +She thought suddenly, "He will crush me to death without knowing +it." + +He was like a blind force. She closed her eyes altogether. Her +head fell back a little. Not instinctively but with wilful +resignation and as it were from a sense of justice she abandoned +herself to his arms. The effect was as though she had suddenly +stabbed him to the heart. He let her go so suddenly and +completely that she would have fallen down in a heap if she had +not managed to catch hold of his forearm. He seemed prepared for +it and for a moment all her weight hung on it without moving its +rigidity by a hair's breadth. Behind her Mrs. Travers heard the +heavy thud of blows on wood, the confused murmurs and movements +of men. + +A voice said suddenly, "It's done," with such emphasis that +though, of course, she didn't understand the words it helped her +to regain possession of herself; and when Lingard asked her very +little above a whisper: "Why don't you say something?" she +answered readily, "Let me get my breath first." + +Round them all sounds had ceased. The men had secured again the +opening through which those arms had snatched her into a moment +of self-forgetfulness which had left her out of breath but +uncrushed. As if something imperative had been satisfied she had +a moment of inward serenity, a period of peace without thought +while, holding to that arm that trembled no more than an arm of +iron, she felt stealthily over the ground for one of the sandals +which she had lost. Oh, yes, there was no doubt of it, she had +been carried off the earth, without shame, without regret. But +she would not have let him know of that dropped sandal for +anything in the world. That lost sandal was as symbolic as a +dropped veil. But he did not know of it. He must never know. +Where was that thing? She felt sure that they had not moved an +inch from that spot. Presently her foot found it and still +gripping Lingard's forearm she stooped to secure it properly. +When she stood up, still holding his arm, they confronted each +other, he rigid in an effort of self-command but feeling as if +the surges of the heaviest sea that he could remember in his life +were running through his heart; and the woman as if emptied of +all feeling by her experience, without thought yet, but beginning +to regain her sense of the situation and the memory of the +immediate past. + +"I have been watching at that loophole for an hour, ever since +they came running to me with that story of the rockets," said +Lingard. "I was shut up with Belarab then. I was looking out when +the torch blazed and you stepped ashore. I thought I was +dreaming. But what could I do? I felt I must rush to you but I +dared not. That clump of palms is full of men. So are the houses +you saw that time you came ashore with me. Full of men. Armed +men. A trigger is soon pulled and when once shooting begins. . . +. And you walking in the open with that light above your head! I +didn't dare. You were safer alone. I had the strength to hold +myself in and watch you come up from the shore. No! No man that +ever lived had seen such a sight. What did you come for?" + +"Didn't you expect somebody? I don't mean me, I mean a +messenger?" + +"No!" said Lingard, wondering at his own self-control. "Why did +he let you come?" + +"You mean Captain Jorgenson? Oh, he refused at first. He said +that he had your orders." + +"How on earth did you manage to get round him?" said Lingard in +his softest tones. + +"I did not try," she began and checked herself. Lingard's +question, though he really didn't seem to care much about an +answer, had aroused afresh her suspicion of Jorgenson's change of +front. "I didn't have to say very much at the last," she +continued, gasping yet a little and feeling her personality, +crushed to nothing in the hug of those arms, expand again to its +full significance before the attentive immobility of that man. +"Captain Jorgenson has always looked upon me as a nuisance. +Perhaps he had made up his mind to get rid of me even against +your orders. Is he quite sane?" + +She released her firm hold of that iron forearm which fell slowly +by Lingard's side. She had regained fully the possession of her +personality. There remained only a fading, slightly breathless +impression of a short flight above that earth on which her feet +were firmly planted now. "And is that all?" she asked herself, +not bitterly, but with a sort of tender contempt. + +"He is so sane," sounded Lingard's voice, gloomily, "that if I +had listened to him you would not have found me here." + +"What do you mean by here? In this stockade?" + +"Anywhere," he said. + +"And what would have happened then?" + +"God knows," he answered. "What would have happened if the world +had not been made in seven days? I have known you for just about +that time. It began by me coming to you at night--like a thief in +the night. Where the devil did I hear that? And that man you are +married to thinks I am no better than a thief." + +"It ought to be enough for you that I never made a mistake as to +what you are, that I come to you in less than twenty-four hours +after you left me contemptuously to my distress. Don't pretend +you didn't hear me call after you. Oh, yes, you heard. The whole +ship heard me for I had no shame." + +"Yes, you came," said Lingard, violently. "But have you really +come? I can't believe my eyes! Are you really here?" + +"This is a dark spot, luckily," said Mrs. Travers. "But can you +really have any doubt?" she added, significantly. + +He made a sudden movement toward her, betraying so much passion +that Mrs. Travers thought, "I shan't come out alive this time," +and yet he was there, motionless before her, as though he had +never stirred. It was more as though the earth had made a sudden +movement under his feet without being able to destroy his +balance. But the earth under Mrs. Travers' feet had made no +movement and for a second she was overwhelmed by wonder not at +this proof of her own self-possession but at the man's immense +power over himself. If it had not been for her strange inward +exhaustion she would perhaps have surrendered to that power. But +it seemed to her that she had nothing in her worth surrendering, +and it was in a perfectly even tone that she said, "Give me your +arm, Captain Lingard. We can't stay all night on this spot." + +As they moved on she thought, "There is real greatness in that +man." He was great even in his behaviour. No apologies, no +explanations, no abasement, no violence, and not even the +slightest tremor of the frame holding that bold and perplexed +soul. She knew that for certain because her fingers were resting +lightly on Lingard's arm while she walked slowly by his side as +though he were taking her down to dinner. And yet she couldn't +suppose for a moment, that, like herself, he was emptied of all +emotion. She never before was so aware of him as a dangerous +force. "He is really ruthless," she thought. They had just left +the shadow of the inner defences about the gate when a slightly +hoarse, apologetic voice was heard behind them repeating +insistently, what even Mrs. Travers' ear detected to be a sort of +formula. The words were: "There is this thing--there is this +thing--there is this thing." They turned round. + +"Oh, my scarf," said Mrs. Travers. + +A short, squat, broad-faced young fellow having for all costume a +pair of white drawers was offering the scarf thrown over both his +arms, as if they had been sticks, and holding it respectfully as +far as possible from his person. Lingard took it from him and +Mrs. Travers claimed it at once. "Don't forget the proprieties," +she said. "This is also my face veil." + +She was arranging it about her head when Lingard said, "There is +no need. I am taking you to those gentlemen."--"I will use it all +the same," said Mrs. Travers. "This thing works both ways, as a +matter of propriety or as a matter of precaution. Till I have an +opportunity of looking into a mirror nothing will persuade me +that there isn't some change in my face." Lingard swung half +round and gazed down at her. Veiled now she confronted him +boldly. "Tell me, Captain Lingard, how many eyes were looking at +us a little while ago?" + +"Do you care?" he asked. + +"Not in the least," she said. "A million stars were looking on, +too, and what did it matter? They were not of the world I know. +And it's just the same with the eyes. They are not of the world I +live in." + +Lingard thought: "Nobody is." Never before had she seemed to him +more unapproachable, more different and more remote. The glow of +a number of small fires lighted the ground only, and brought out +the black bulk of men lying down in the thin drift of smoke. Only +one of these fires, rather apart and burning in front of the +house which was the quarter of the prisoners, might have been +called a blaze and even that was not a great one. It didn't +penetrate the dark space between the piles and the depth of the +verandah above where only a couple of heads and the glint of a +spearhead could be seen dimly in the play of the light. But down +on the ground outside, the black shape of a man seated on a bench +had an intense relief. Another intensely black shadow threw a +handful of brushwood on the fire and went away. The man on the +bench got up. It was d'Alcacer. He let Lingard and Mrs. Travers +come quite close up to him. Extreme surprise seemed to have made +him dumb. + +"You didn't expect . . ." began Mrs. Travers with some +embarrassment before that mute attitude. + +"I doubted my eyes," struck in d'Alcacer, who seemed embarrassed, +too. Next moment he recovered his tone and confessed simply: "At +the moment I wasn't thinking of you, Mrs. Travers." He passed his +hand over his forehead. "I hardly know what I was thinking of." + +In the light of the shooting-up flame Mrs. Travers could see +d'Alcacer's face. There was no smile on it. She could not +remember ever seeing him so grave and, as it were, so distant. +She abandoned Lingard's arm and moved closer to the fire. + +"I fancy you were very far away, Mr. d'Alcacer," she said. + +"This is the sort of freedom of which nothing can deprive us," he +observed, looking hard at the manner in which the scarf was drawn +across Mrs. Travers' face. "It's possible I was far away," he +went on, "but I can assure you that I don't know where I was. +Less than an hour ago we had a great excitement here about some +rockets, but I didn't share in it. There was no one I could ask a +question of. The captain here was, I understood, engaged in a +most momentous conversation with the king or the governor of this +place." + +He addressed Lingard, directly. "May I ask whether you have +reached any conclusion as yet? That Moor is a very dilatory +person, I believe." + +"Any direct attack he would, of course, resist," said Lingard. +"And, so far, you are protected. But I must admit that he is +rather angry with me. He's tired of the whole business. He loves +peace above anything in the world. But I haven't finished with +him yet." + +"As far as I understood from what you told me before," said Mr. +d'Alcacer, with a quick side glance at Mrs. Travers' uncovered +and attentive eyes, "as far as I can see he may get all the peace +he wants at once by driving us two, I mean Mr. Travers and +myself, out of the gate on to the spears of those other enraged +barbarians. And there are some of his counsellors who advise him +to do that very thing no later than the break of day I +understand." + +Lingard stood for a moment perfectly motionless. + +"That's about it," he said in an unemotional tone, and went away +with a heavy step without giving another look at d'Alcacer and +Mrs. Travers, who after a moment faced each other. + +"You have heard?" said d'Alcacer. "Of course that doesn't affect +your fate in any way, and as to him he is much too prestigious to +be killed light-heartedly. When all this is over you will walk +triumphantly on his arm out of this stockade; for there is +nothing in all this to affect his greatness, his absolute value +in the eyes of those people--and indeed in any other eyes." +D'Alcacer kept his glance averted from Mrs. Travers and as soon +as he had finished speaking busied himself in dragging the bench +a little way further from the fire. When they sat down on it he +kept his distance from Mrs. Travers. She made no sign of +unveiling herself and her eyes without a face seemed to him +strangely unknown and disquieting. + +"The situation in a nutshell," she said. "You have arranged it +all beautifully, even to my triumphal exit. Well, and what then? +No, you needn't answer, it has no interest. I assure you I came +here not with any notion of marching out in triumph, as you call +it. I came here, to speak in the most vulgar way, to save your +skin--and mine." + +Her voice came muffled to d'Alcacer's ears with a changed +character, even to the very intonation. Above the white and +embroidered scarf her eyes in the firelight transfixed him, black +and so steady that even the red sparks of the reflected glare did +not move in them. He concealed the strong impression she made. He +bowed his head a little. + +"I believe you know perfectly well what you are doing." + +"No! I don't know," she said, more quickly than he had ever heard +her speak before. "First of all, I don't think he is so safe as +you imagine. Oh, yes, he has prestige enough, I don't question +that. But you are apportioning life and death with too much +assurance. . . ." + +"I know my portion," murmured d'Alcacer, gently. A moment of +silence fell in which Mrs. Travers' eyes ended by intimidating +d'Alcacer, who looked away. The flame of the fire had sunk low. +In the dark agglomeration of buildings, which might have been +called Belarab's palace, there was a certain animation, a +flitting of people, voices calling and answering, the passing to +and fro of lights that would illuminate suddenly a heavy pile, +the corner of a house, the eaves of a low-pitched roof, while in +the open parts of the stockade the armed men slept by the +expiring fires. + +Mrs. Travers said, suddenly, "That Jorgenson is not friendly to +us." + +"Possibly." + +With clasped hands and leaning over his knees d'Alcacer had +assented in a very low tone. Mrs. Travers, unobserved, pressed +her hands to her breast and felt the shape of the ring, thick, +heavy, set with a big stone. It was there, secret, hung against +her heart, and enigmatic. What did it mean? What could it mean? +What was the feeling it could arouse or the action it could +provoke? And she thought with compunction that she ought to have +given it to Lingard at once, without thinking, without +hesitating. "There! This is what I came for. To give you this." +Yes, but there had come an interval when she had been able to +think of nothing, and since then she had had the time to +reflect--unfortunately. To remember Jorgenson's hostile, +contemptuous glance enveloping her from head to foot at the break +of a day after a night of lonely anguish. And now while she sat +there veiled from his keen sight there was that other man, that +d'Alcacer, prophesying. O yes, triumphant. She knew already what +that was. Mrs. Travers became afraid of the ring. She felt ready +to pluck it from her neck and cast it away. + +"I mistrust him," she said.--"You do!" exclaimed d'Alcacer, very +low.--"I mean that Jorgenson. He seems a merciless sort of +creature."--"He is indifferent to everything," said +d'Alcacer.--"It may be a mask." --"Have you some evidence, Mrs. +Travers?" + +"No," said Mrs. Travers without hesitation. "I have my instinct." + +D'Alcacer remained silent for a while as though he were pursuing +another train of thought altogether, then in a gentle, almost +playful tone: "If I were a woman," he said, turning to Mrs. +Travers, "I would always trust my intuition."--"If you were a +woman, Mr. d'Alcacer, I would not be speaking to you in this way +because then I would be suspect to you." + +The thought that before long perhaps he would be neither man nor +woman but a lump of cold clay, crossed d'Alcacer's mind, which +was living, alert, and unsubdued by the danger. He had welcomed +the arrival of Mrs. Travers simply because he had been very +lonely in that stockade, Mr. Travers having fallen into a phase +of sulks complicated with shivering fits. Of Lingard d'Alcacer +had seen almost nothing since they had landed, for the Man of +Fate was extremely busy negotiating in the recesses of Belarab's +main hut; and the thought that his life was being a matter of +arduous bargaining was not agreeable to Mr. d'Alcacer. The +Chief's dependents and the armed men garrisoning the stockade +paid very little attention to him apparently, and this gave him +the feeling of his captivity being very perfect and hopeless. +During the afternoon, while pacing to and fro in the bit of shade +thrown by the glorified sort of hut inside which Mr. Travers +shivered and sulked misanthropically, he had been aware of the +more distant verandahs becoming filled now and then by the +muffled forms of women of Belarab's household taking a distant +and curious view of the white man. All this was irksome. He found +his menaced life extremely difficult to get through. Yes, he +welcomed the arrival of Mrs. Travers who brought with her a +tragic note into the empty gloom. + +"Suspicion is not in my nature, Mrs. Travers, I assure you, and I +hope that you on your side will never suspect either my reserve +or my frankness. I respect the mysterious nature of your +conviction but hasn't Jorgenson given you some occasion to. . . +" + +"He hates me," said Mrs. Travers, and frowned at d'Alcacer's +incipient smile. "It isn't a delusion on my part. The worst is +that he hates me not for myself. I believe he is completely +indifferent to my existence. Jorgenson hates me because as it +were I represent you two who are in danger, because it is you two +that are the trouble and I . . . Well!" + +"Yes, yes, that's certain," said d'Alcacer, hastily. "But +Jorgenson is wrong in making you the scapegoat. For if you were +not here cool reason would step in and would make Lingard pause +in his passion to make a king out of an exile. If we were +murdered it would certainly make some stir in the world in time +and he would fall under the suspicion of complicity with those +wild and inhuman Moors. Who would regard the greatness of his +day-dreams, his engaged honour, his chivalrous feelings? Nothing +could save him from that suspicion. And being what he is, you +understand me, Mrs. Travers (but you know him much better than I +do), it would morally kill him." + +"Heavens!" whispered Mrs. Travers. "This has never occurred to +me." Those words seemed to lose themselves in the folds of the +scarf without reaching d'Alcacer, who continued in his gentle +tone: + +'"However, as it is, he will be safe enough whatever happens. He +will have your testimony to clear him." + +Mrs. Travers stood up, suddenly, but still careful to keep her +face covered, she threw the end of the scarf over her shoulder. + +"I fear that Jorgenson," she cried with suppressed passion. "One +can't understand what that man means to do. I think him so +dangerous that if I were, for instance, entrusted with a message +bearing on the situation, I would . . . suppress it." + +D'Alcacer was looking up from the seat, full of wonder. Mrs. +Travers appealed to him in a calm voice through the folds of the +scarf: + +"Tell me, Mr. d'Alcacer, you who can look on it calmly, wouldn't +I be right?" + +"Why, has Jorgenson told you anything?" + +"Directly--nothing, except a phrase or two which really I could +not understand. They seemed to have a hidden sense and he +appeared to attach some mysterious importance to them that he +dared not explain to me." + +"That was a risk on his part," exclaimed d'Alcacer. "And he +trusted you. Why you, I wonder!" + +"Who can tell what notions he has in his head? Mr. d'Alcacer, I +believe his only object is to call Captain Lingard away from us. +I understood it only a few minutes ago. It has dawned upon me. +All he wants is to call him off." + +"Call him off," repeated d'Alcacer, a little bewildered by the +aroused fire of her conviction. "I am sure I don't want him +called off any more than you do; and, frankly, I don't believe +Jorgenson has any such power. But upon the whole, and if you feel +that Jorgenson has the power, I would--yes, if I were in your +place I think I would suppress anything I could not understand." + +Mrs. Travers listened to the very end. Her eyes--they appeared +incredibly sombre to d'Alcacer--seemed to watch the fall of every +deliberate word and after he had ceased they remained still for +an appreciable time. Then she turned away with a gesture that +seemed to say: "So be it." + +D'Alcacer raised his voice suddenly after her. "Stay! Don't +forget that not only your husband's but my head, too, is being +played at that game. My judgment is not . . ." + +She stopped for a moment and freed her lips. In the profound +stillness of the courtyard her clear voice made the shadows at +the nearest fires stir a little with low murmurs of surprise. + +"Oh, yes, I remember whose heads I have to save," she cried. "But +in all the world who is there to save that man from himself?" + + + +V + +D'Alcacer sat down on the bench again. "I wonder what she knows," +he thought, "and I wonder what I have done." He wondered also how +far he had been sincere and how far affected by a very natural +aversion from being murdered obscurely by ferocious Moors with +all the circumstances of barbarity. It was a very naked death to +come upon one suddenly. It was robbed of all helpful illusions, +such as the free will of a suicide, the heroism of a warrior, or +the exaltation of a martyr. "Hadn't I better make some sort of +fight of it?" he debated with himself. He saw himself rushing at +the naked spears without any enthusiasm. Or wouldn't it be better +to go forth to meet his doom (somewhere outside the stockade on +that horrible beach) with calm dignity. "Pah! I shall be probably +speared through the back in the beastliest possible fashion," he +thought with an inward shudder. It was certainly not a shudder of +fear, for Mr. d'Alcacer attached no high value to life. It was a +shudder of disgust because Mr. d'Alcacer was a civilized man and +though he had no illusions about civilization he could not but +admit the superiority of its methods. It offered to one a certain +refinement of form, a comeliness of proceedings and definite +safeguards against deadly surprises. "How idle all this is," he +thought, finally. His next thought was that women were very +resourceful. It was true, he went on meditating with unwonted +cynicism, that strictly speaking they had only one resource but, +generally, it served--it served. + +He was surprised by his supremely shameless bitterness at this +juncture. It was so uncalled for. This situation was too +complicated to be entrusted to a cynical or shameless hope. There +was nothing to trust to. At this moment of his meditation he +became aware of Lingard's approach. He raised his head eagerly. +D'Alcacer was not indifferent to his fate and even to Mr. +Travers' fate. He would fain learn. . . . But one look at +Lingard's face was enough. "It's no use asking him anything," he +said to himself, "for he cares for nothing just now." + +Lingard sat down heavily on the other end of the bench, and +d'Alcacer, looking at his profile, confessed to himself that this +was the most masculinely good-looking face he had ever seen in +his life. It was an expressive face, too, but its present +expression was also beyond d'Alcacer's past experience. At the +same time its quietness set up a barrier against common +curiosities and even common fears. No, it was no use asking him +anything. Yet something should be said to break the spell, to +call down again this man to the earth. But it was Lingard who +spoke first. "Where has Mrs. Travers gone?" + +"She has gone . . . where naturally she would be anxious to go +first of all since she has managed to come to us," answered +d'Alcacer, wording his answer with the utmost regard for the +delicacy of the situation. + +The stillness of Lingard seemed to have grown even more +impressive. He spoke again. + +"I wonder what those two can have to say to each other." + +He might have been asking that of the whole darkened part of the +globe, but it was d'Alcacer who answered in his courteous tones. + +"Would it surprise you very much, Captain Lingard, if I were to +tell you that those two people are quite fit to understand each +other thoroughly? Yes? It surprises you! Well, I assure you that +seven thousand miles from here nobody would wonder." + +"I think I understand," said Lingard, "but don't you know the man +is light-headed? A man like that is as good as mad." + +"Yes, he had been slightly delirious since seven o'clock," said +d'Alcacer. "But believe me, Captain Lingard," he continued, +earnestly, and obeying a perfectly disinterested impulse, "that +even in his delirium he is far more understandable to her and +better able to understand her than . . . anybody within a hundred +miles from here." + +"Ah!" said Lingard without any emotion, "so you don't wonder. You +don't see any reason for wonder." + +"No, for, don't you see, I do know." + +"What do you know?" + +"Men and women, Captain Lingard, which you. . . ." + +"I don't know any woman." + +"You have spoken the strictest truth there," said d'Alcacer, and +for the first time Lingard turned his head slowly and looked at +his neighbour on the bench. + +"Do you think she is as good as mad, too?" asked Lingard in a +startled voice. + +D'Alcacer let escape a low exclamation. No, certainly he did not +think so. It was an original notion to suppose that lunatics had +a sort of common logic which made them understandable to each +other. D'Alcacer tried to make his voice as gentle as possible +while he pursued: "No, Captain Lingard, I believe the woman of +whom we speak is and will always remain in the fullest possession +of herself." + +Lingard, leaning back, clasped his hands round his knees. He +seemed not to be listening and d'Alcacer, pulling a cigarette +case out of his pocket, looked for a long time at the three +cigarettes it contained. It was the last of the provision he had +on him when captured. D'Alcacer had put himself on the strictest +allowance. A cigarette was only to be lighted on special +occasions; and now there were only three left and they had to be +made to last till the end of life. They calmed, they soothed, +they gave an attitude. And only three left! One had to be kept +for the morning, to be lighted before going through the gate of +doom--the gate of Belarab's stockade. A cigarette soothed, it +gave an attitude. Was this the fitting occasion for one of the +remaining two? D'Alcacer, a true Latin, was not afraid of a +little introspection. In the pause he descended into the +innermost depths of his being, then glanced up at the night sky. +Sportsman, traveller, he had often looked up at the stars before +to see how time went. It was going very slowly. He took out a +cigarette, snapped-to the case, bent down to the embers. Then he +sat up and blew out a thin cloud of smoke. The man by his side +looked with his bowed head and clasped knee like a masculine +rendering of mournful meditation. Such attitudes are met with +sometimes on the sculptures of ancient tombs. D'Alcacer began to +speak: + +"She is a representative woman and yet one of those of whom there +are but very few at any time in the world. Not that they are very +rare but that there is but little room on top. They are the +iridescent gleams on a hard and dark surface. For the world is +hard, Captain Lingard, it is hard, both in what it will remember +and in what it will forget. It is for such women that people toil +on the ground and underground and artists of all sorts invoke +their inspiration." + +Lingard seemed not to have heard a word. His chin rested on his +breast. D'Alcacer appraised the remaining length of his cigarette +and went on in an equable tone through which pierced a certain +sadness: + +"No, there are not many of them. And yet they are all. They +decorate our life for us. They are the gracious figures on the +drab wall which lies on this side of our common grave. They lead +a sort of ritual dance, that most of us have agreed to take +seriously. It is a very binding agreement with which sincerity +and good faith and honour have nothing to do. Very binding. Woe +to him or her who breaks it. Directly they leave the pageant they +get lost." + +Lingard turned his head sharply and discovered d'Alcacer looking +at him with profound attention. + +"They get lost in a maze," continued d'Alcacer, quietly. "They +wander in it lamenting over themselves. I would shudder at that +fate for anything I loved. Do you know, Captain Lingard, how +people lost in a maze end?" he went on holding Lingard by a +steadfast stare. "No? . . . I will tell you then. They end by +hating their very selves, and they die in disillusion and +despair." + +As if afraid of the force of his words d'Alcacer laid a soothing +hand lightly on Lingard's shoulder. But Lingard continued to look +into the embers at his feet and remained insensible to the +friendly touch. Yet d'Alcacer could not imagine that he had not +been heard. He folded his arms on his breast. + +"I don't know why I have been telling you all this," he said, +apologetically. "I hope I have not been intruding on your +thoughts." + +"I can think of nothing," Lingard declared, unexpectedly. "I only +know that your voice was friendly; and for the rest--" + +"One must get through a night like this somehow," said d'Alcacer. +"The very stars seem to lag on their way. It's a common belief +that a drowning man is irresistibly compelled to review his past +experience. Just now I feel quite out of my depth, and whatever I +have said has come from my experience. I am sure you will forgive +me. All that it amounts to is this: that it is natural for us to +cry for the moon but it would be very fatal to have our cries +heard. For what could any one of us do with the moon if it were +given to him? I am speaking now of us--common mortals." + +It was not immediately after d'Alcacer had ceased speaking but +only after a moment that Lingard unclasped his fingers, got up, +and walked away. D'Alcacer followed with a glance of quiet +interest the big, shadowy form till it vanished in the direction +of an enormous forest tree left in the middle of the stockade. +The deepest shade of the night was spread over the ground of +Belarab's fortified courtyard. The very embers of the fires had +turned black, showing only here and there a mere spark; and the +forms of the prone sleepers could hardly be distinguished from +the hard ground on which they rested, with their arms lying +beside them on the mats. Presently Mrs. Travers appeared quite +close to d'Alcacer, who rose instantly. + +"Martin is asleep," said Mrs. Travers in a tone that seemed to +have borrowed something of the mystery and quietness of the +night. + +"All the world's asleep," observed d'Alcacer, so low that Mrs. +Travers barely caught the words, "Except you and me, and one +other who has left me to wander about in the night." + +"Was he with you? Where has he gone?" + +"Where it's darkest I should think," answered d'Alcacer, +secretly. "It's no use going to look for him; but if you keep +perfectly still and hold your breath you may presently hear his +footsteps." + +"What did he tell you?" breathed out Mrs. Travers. + +"I didn't ask him anything. I only know that something has +happened which has robbed him of his power of thinking . . . +Hadn't I better go to the hut? Don Martin ought to have someone +with him when he wakes up." Mrs. Travers remained perfectly still +and even now and then held her breath with a vague fear of +hearing those footsteps wandering in the dark. D'Alcacer had +disappeared. Again Mrs. Travers held her breath. No. Nothing. Not +a sound. Only the night to her eyes seemed to have grown darker. +Was that a footstep? "Where could I hide myself?" she thought. +But she didn't move. + +After leaving d'Alcacer, Lingard threading his way between the +fires found himself under the big tree, the same tree against +which Daman had been leaning on the day of the great talk when +the white prisoners had been surrendered to Lingard's keeping on +definite conditions. Lingard passed through the deep obscurity +made by the outspread boughs of the only witness left there of a +past that for endless ages had seen no mankind on this shore +defended by the Shallows, around this lagoon overshadowed by the +jungle. In the calm night the old giant, without shudders or +murmurs in its enormous limbs, saw the restless man drift through +the black shade into the starlight. + +In that distant part of the courtyard there were only a few +sentries who, themselves invisible, saw Lingard's white figure +pace to and fro endlessly. They knew well who that was. It was +the great white man. A very great man. A very rich man. A +possessor of fire-arms, who could dispense valuable gifts and +deal deadly blows, the friend of their Ruler, the enemy of his +enemies, known to them for years and always mysterious. At their +posts, flattened against the stakes near convenient loopholes, +they cast backward glances and exchanged faint whispers from time +to time. + +Lingard might have thought himself alone. He had lost touch with +the world. What he had said to d'Alcacer was perfectly true. He +had no thought. He was in the state of a man who, having cast his +eyes through the open gates of Paradise, is rendered insensible +by that moment's vision to all the forms and matters of the +earth; and in the extremity of his emotion ceases even to look +upon himself but as the subject of a sublime experience which +exalts or unfits, sanctifies or damns--he didn't know which. +Every shadowy thought, every passing sensation was like a base +intrusion on that supreme memory. He couldn't bear it. + +When he had tried to resume his conversation with Belarab after +Mrs. Travers' arrival he had discovered himself unable to go on. +He had just enough self-control to break off the interview in +measured terms. He pointed out the lateness of the hour, a most +astonishing excuse to people to whom time is nothing and whose +life and activities are not ruled by the clock. Indeed Lingard +hardly knew what he was saying or doing when he went out again +leaving everybody dumb with astonishment at the change in his +aspect and in his behaviour. A suspicious silence reigned for a +long time in Belarab's great audience room till the Chief +dismissed everybody by two quiet words and a slight gesture. + +With her chin in her hand in the pose of a sybil trying to read +the future in the glow of dying embers, Mrs. Travers, without +holding her breath, heard quite close to her the footsteps which +she had been listening for with mingled alarm, remorse, and hope. + +She didn't change her attitude. The deep red glow lighted her up +dimly, her face, the white hand hanging by her side, her feet in +their sandals. The disturbing footsteps stopped close to her. + +"Where have you been all this time?" she asked, without looking +round. + +"I don't know," answered Lingard. He was speaking the exact +truth. He didn't know. Ever since he had released that woman from +his arms everything but the vaguest notions had departed from +him. Events, necessities, things--he had lost his grip on them +all. And he didn't care. They were futile and impotent; he had no +patience with them. The offended and astonished Belarab, +d'Alcacer with his kindly touch and friendly voice, the sleeping +men, the men awake, the Settlement full of unrestful life and the +restless Shallows of the coast, were removed from him into an +immensity of pitying contempt. Perhaps they existed. Perhaps all +this waited for him. Well, let all this wait; let everything +wait, till to-morrow or to the end of time, which could now come +at any moment for all he cared--but certainly till to-morrow. + +"I only know," he went on with an emphasis that made Mrs. Travers +raise her head, "that wherever I go I shall carry you with +me--against my breast." + +Mrs. Travers' fine ear caught the mingled tones of suppressed +exultation and dawning fear, the ardour and the faltering of +those words. She was feeling still the physical truth at the root +of them so strongly that she couldn't help saying in a dreamy +whisper: + +"Did you mean to crush the life out of me?" + +He answered in the same tone: + +"I could not have done it. You are too strong. Was I rough? I +didn't mean to be. I have been often told I didn't know my own +strength. You did not seem able to get through that opening and +so I caught hold of you. You came away in my hands quite easily. +Suddenly I thought to myself, 'now I will make sure.'" + +He paused as if his breath had failed him. Mrs. Travers dared not +make the slightest movement. Still in the pose of one in quest of +hidden truth she murmured, "Make sure?" + +"Yes. And now I am sure. You are here--here! Before I couldn't +tell." + +"Oh, you couldn't tell before," she said. + +"No." + +"So it was reality that you were seeking." + +He repeated as if speaking to himself: "And now I am sure." + +Her sandalled foot, all rosy in the glow, felt the warmth of the +embers. The tepid night had enveloped her body; and still under +the impression of his strength she gave herself up to a momentary +feeling of quietude that came about her heart as soft as the +night air penetrated by the feeble clearness of the stars. "This +is a limpid soul," she thought. + +"You know I always believed in you," he began again. "You know I +did. Well. I never believed in you so much as I do now, as you +sit there, just as you are, and with hardly enough light to make +you out by." + +It occurred to her that she had never heard a voice she liked so +well--except one. But that had been a great actor's voice; +whereas this man was nothing in the world but his very own self. +He persuaded, he moved, he disturbed, he soothed by his inherent +truth. He had wanted to make sure and he had made sure +apparently; and too weary to resist the waywardness of her +thoughts Mrs. Travers reflected with a sort of amusement that +apparently he had not been disappointed. She thought, "He +believes in me. What amazing words. Of all the people that might +have believed in me I had to find this one here. He believes in +me more than in himself." A gust of sudden remorse tore her out +from her quietness, made her cry out to him: + +"Captain Lingard, we forget how we have met, we forget what is +going on. We mustn't. I won't say that you placed your belief +wrongly but I have to confess something to you. I must tell you +how I came here to-night. Jorgenson . . ." + +He interrupted her forcibly but without raising his voice. + +"Jorgenson. Who's Jorgenson? You came to me because you couldn't +help yourself." + +This took her breath away. "But I must tell you. There is +something in my coming which is not clear to me." + +"You can tell me nothing that I don't know already," he said in a +pleading tone. "Say nothing. Sit still. Time enough to-morrow. +To-morrow! The night is drawing to an end and I care for nothing +in the world but you. Let me be. Give me the rest that is in +you." + +She had never heard such accents on his lips and she felt for him +a great and tender pity. Why not humour this mood in which he +wanted to preserve the moments that would never come to him again +on this earth? She hesitated in silence. She saw him stir in the +darkness as if he could not make up his mind to sit down on the +bench. But suddenly he scattered the embers with his foot and +sank on the ground against her feet, and she was not startled in +the least to feel the weight of his head on her knee. Mrs. +Travers was not startled but she felt profoundly moved. Why +should she torment him with all those questions of freedom and +captivity, of violence and intrigue, of life and death? He was +not in a state to be told anything and it seemed to her that she +did not want to speak, that in the greatness of her compassion +she simply could not speak. All she could do for him was to rest +her hand lightly on his head and respond silently to the slight +movement she felt, sigh or sob, but a movement which suddenly +immobilized her in an anxious emotion. + +About the same time on the other side of the lagoon Jorgenson, +raising his eyes, noted the stars and said to himself that the +night would not last long now. He wished for daylight. He hoped +that Lingard had already done something. The blaze in Tengga's +compound had been re-lighted. Tom's power was unbounded, +practically unbounded. And he was invulnerable. + +Jorgenson let his old eyes wander amongst the gleams and shadows +of the great sheet of water between him and that hostile shore +and fancied he could detect a floating shadow having the +characteristic shape of a man in a small canoe. + +"O! Ya! Man!" he hailed. "What do you want?" Other eyes, too, had +detected that shadow. Low murmurs arose on the deck of the Emma. +"If you don't speak at once I shall fire," shouted Jorgenson, +fiercely. + +"No, white man," returned the floating shape in a solemn drawl. +"I am the bearer of friendly words. A chief's words. I come from +Tengga." + +"There was a bullet that came on board not a long time ago--also +from Tengga," said Jorgenson. + +"That was an accident," protested the voice from the lagoon. +"What else could it be? Is there war between you and Tengga? No, +no, O white man! All Tengga desires is a long talk. He has sent +me to ask you to come ashore." + +At these words Jorgenson's heart sank a little. This invitation +meant that Lingard had made no move. Was Tom asleep or altogether +mad? + +"The talk would be of peace," declared impressively the shadow +which had drifted much closer to the hulk now. + +"It isn't for me to talk with great chiefs," Jorgenson returned, +cautiously. + +"But Tengga is a friend," argued the nocturnal messenger. "And by +that fire there are other friends--your friends, the Rajah Hassim +and the lady Immada, who send you their greetings and who expect +their eyes to rest on you before sunrise." + +"That's a lie," remarked Jorgenson, perfunctorily, and fell into +thought, while the shadowy bearer of words preserved a +scandalized silence, though, of course, he had not expected to be +believed for a moment. But one could never tell what a white man +would believe. He had wanted to produce the impression that +Hassim and Immada were the honoured guests of Tengga. It occurred +to him suddenly that perhaps Jorgenson didn't know anything of +the capture. And he persisted. + +"My words are all true, Tuan. The Rajah of Wajo and his sister +are with my master. I left them sitting by the fire on Tengga's +right hand. Will you come ashore to be welcomed amongst friends?" + +Jorgenson had been reflecting profoundly. His object was to gain +as much time as possible for Lingard's interference which indeed +could not fail to be effective. But he had not the slightest wish +to entrust himself to Tengga's friendliness. Not that he minded +the risk; but he did not see the use of taking it. + +"No!" he said, "I can't go ashore. We white men have ways of our +own and I am chief of this hulk. And my chief is the Rajah Laut, +a white man like myself. + +All the words that matter are in him and if Tengga is such a +great chief let him ask the Rajah Laut for a talk. Yes, that's +the proper thing for Tengga to do if he is such a great chief as +he says." + +"The Rajah Laut has made his choice. He dwells with Belarab, and +with the white people who are huddled together like trapped deer +in Belarab's stockade. Why shouldn't you meantime go over where +everything is lighted up and open and talk in friendship with +Tengga's friends, whose hearts have been made sick by many +doubts; Rajah Hassim and the lady Immada and Daman, the chief of +the men of the sea, who do not know now whom they can trust +unless it be you, Tuan, the keeper of much wealth?" + +The diplomatist in the small dugout paused for a moment to give +special weight to the final argument: + +"Which you have no means to defend. We know how many armed men +there are with you." + +"They are great fighters," Jorgenson observed, unconcernedly, +spreading his elbows on the rail and looking over at the floating +black patch of characteristic shape whence proceeded the voice of +the wily envoy of Tengga. "Each man of them is worth ten of such +as you can find in the Settlement." + +"Yes, by Allah. Even worth twenty of these common people. Indeed, +you have enough with you to make a great fight but not enough for +victory." + +"God alone gives victory," said suddenly the voice of Jaffir, +who, very still at Jorgenson's elbow, had been listening to the +conversation. + +"Very true," was the answer in an extremely conventional tone. +"Will you come ashore, O white man; and be the leader of chiefs?" + +"I have been that before," said Jorgenson, with great dignity, +"and now all I want is peace. But I won't come ashore amongst +people whose minds are so much troubled, till Rajah Hassim and +his sister return on board this ship and tell me the tale of +their new friendship with Tengga." + +His heart was sinking with every minute, the very air was growing +heavier with the sense of oncoming disaster, on that night that +was neither war nor peace and whose only voice was the voice of +Tengga's envoy, insinuating in tone though menacing in words. + +"No, that cannot be," said that voice. "But, Tuan, verily Tengga +himself is ready to come on board here to talk with you. He is +very ready to come and indeed, Tuan, he means to come on board +here before very long." + +"Yes, with fifty war-canoes filled with the ferocious rabble of +the Shore of Refuge," Jaffir was heard commenting, sarcastically, +over the rail; and a sinister muttered "It may be so," ascended +alongside from the black water. + +Jorgenson kept silent as if waiting for a supreme inspiration and +suddenly he spoke in his other-world voice: "Tell Tengga from me +that as long as he brings with him Rajah Hassim and the Rajah's +sister, he and his chief men will be welcome on deck here, no +matter how many boats come along with them. For that I do not +care. You may go now." + +A profound silence succeeded. It was clear that the envoy was +gone, keeping in the shadow of the shore. Jorgenson turned to +Jaffir. + +"Death amongst friends is but a festival," he quoted, mumbling in +his moustache. + +"It is, by Allah," assented Jaffir with sombre fervour. + + + +VI + +Thirty-six hours later Carter, alone with Lingard in the cabin of +the brig, could almost feel during a pause in his talk the +oppressive, the breathless peace of the Shallows awaiting another +sunset. + +"I never expected to see any of you alive," Carter began in his +easy tone, but with much less carelessness in his bearing as +though his days of responsibility amongst the Shoals of the Shore +of Refuge had matured his view of the external world and of his +own place therein. + +"Of course not," muttered Lingard. + +The listlessness of that man whom he had always seen acting under +the stress of a secret passion seemed perfectly appalling to +Carter's youthful and deliberate energy. Ever since he had found +himself again face to face with Lingard he had tried to conceal +the shocking impression with a delicacy which owed nothing to +training but was as intuitive as a child's. + +While justifying to Lingard his manner of dealing with the +situation on the Shore of Refuge, he could not for the life of +him help asking himself what was this new mystery. He was also +young enough to long for a word of commendation. + +"Come, Captain," he argued; "how would you have liked to come out +and find nothing but two half-burnt wrecks stuck on the +sands--perhaps?" + +He waited for a moment, then in sheer compassion turned away his +eyes from that fixed gaze, from that harassed face with sunk +cheeks, from that figure of indomitable strength robbed of its +fire. He said to himself: "He doesn't hear me," and raised his +voice without altering its self-contained tone: + +"I was below yesterday morning when we felt the shock, but the +noise came to us only as a deep rumble. I made one jump for the +companion but that precious Shaw was before me yelling, +'Earthquake! Earthquake!' and I am hanged if he didn't miss his +footing and land down on his head at the bottom of the stairs. I +had to stop to pick him up but I got on deck in time to see a +mighty black cloud that seemed almost solid pop up from behind +the forest like a balloon. It stayed there for quite a long time. +Some of our Calashes on deck swore to me that they had seen a red +flash above the tree-tops. But that's hard to believe. I guessed +at once that something had blown up on shore. My first thought +was that I would never see you any more and I made up my mind at +once to find out all the truth you have been keeping away from +me. No, sir! Don't you make a mistake! I wasn't going to give you +up, dead or alive." + +He looked hard at Lingard while saying these words and saw the +first sign of animation pass over that ravaged face. He saw even +its lips move slightly; but there was no sound, and Carter looked +away again. + +"Perhaps you would have done better by telling me everything; but +you left me behind on my own to be your man here. I put my hand +to the work I could see before me. I am a sailor. There were two +ships to look after. And here they are both for you, fit to go or +to stay, to fight or to run, as you choose." He watched with +bated breath the effort Lingard had to make to utter the two +words of the desired commendation: + +"Well done!" + +"And I am your man still," Carter added, impulsively, and +hastened to look away from Lingard, who had tried to smile at him +and had failed. Carter didn't know what to do next, remain in the +cabin or leave that unsupported strong man to himself. With a +shyness completely foreign to his character and which he could +not understand himself, he suggested in an engaging murmur and +with an embarrassed assumption of his right to give advice: + +"Why not lie down for a bit, sir? I can attend to anything that +may turn up. You seem done up, sir." + +He was facing Lingard, who stood on the other side of the table +in a leaning forward attitude propped up on rigid arms and stared +fixedly at him--perhaps? Carter felt on the verge of despair. +This couldn't last. He was relieved to see Lingard shake his head +slightly. + +"No, Mr. Carter. I think I will go on deck," said the Captain of +the famous brig Lightning, while his eyes roamed all over the +cabin. Carter stood aside at once, but it was some little time +before Lingard made a move. + +The sun had sunk already, leaving that evening no trace of its +glory on a sky clear as crystal and on the waters without a +ripple. All colour seemed to have gone out of the world. The +oncoming shadow rose as subtle as a perfume from the black coast +lying athwart the eastern semicircle; and such was the silence +within the horizon that one might have fancied oneself come to +the end of time. Black and toylike in the clear depths and the +final stillness of the evening the brig and the schooner lay +anchored in the middle of the main channel with their heads swung +the same way. Lingard, with his chin on his breast and his arms +folded, moved slowly here and there about the poop. Close and +mute like his shadow, Carter, at his elbow, followed his +movements. He felt an anxious solicitude. . . . + +It was a sentiment perfectly new to him. He had never before felt +this sort of solicitude about himself or any other man. His +personality was being developed by new experience, and as he was +very simple he received the initiation with shyness and +self-mistrust. He had noticed with innocent alarm that Lingard +had not looked either at the sky or over the sea, neither at his +own ship nor the schooner astern; not along the decks, not aloft, +not anywhere. He had looked at nothing! And somehow Carter felt +himself more lonely and without support than when he had been +left alone by that man in charge of two ships entangled amongst +the Shallows and environed by some sinister mystery. Since that +man had come back, instead of welcome relief Carter felt his +responsibility rest on his young shoulders with tenfold weight. +His profound conviction was that Lingard should be roused. + +"Captain Lingard," he burst out in desperation; "you can't say I +have worried you very much since this morning when I received you +at the side, but I must be told something. What is it going to be +with us? Fight or run?" + +Lingard stopped short and now there was no doubt in Carter's mind +that the Captain was looking at him. There was no room for any +doubt before that stern and enquiring gaze. "Aha!" thought +Carter. "This has startled him"; and feeling that his shyness had +departed he pursued his advantage. "For the fact of the matter +is, sir, that, whatever happens, unless I am to be your man you +will have no officer. I had better tell you at once that I have +bundled that respectable, crazy, fat Shaw out of the ship. He was +upsetting all hands. Yesterday I told him to go and get his +dunnage together because I was going to send him aboard the +yacht. He couldn't have made more uproar about it if I had +proposed to chuck him overboard. I warned him that if he didn't +go quietly I would have him tied up like a sheep ready for +slaughter. However, he went down the ladder on his own feet, +shaking his fist at me and promising to have me hanged for a +pirate some day. He can do no harm on board the yacht. And now, +sir, it's for you to give orders and not for me--thank God!" + +Lingard turned away, abruptly. Carter didn't budge. After a +moment he heard himself called from the other side of the deck +and obeyed with alacrity. + +"What's that story of a man you picked up on the coast last +evening?" asked Lingard in his gentlest tone. "Didn't you tell me +something about it when I came on board?" + +"I tried to," said Carter, frankly. "But I soon gave it up. You +didn't seem to pay any attention to what I was saying. I thought +you wanted to be left alone for a bit. What can I know of your +ways, yet, sir? Are you aware, Captain Lingard, that since this +morning I have been down five times at the cabin door to look at +you? There you sat. . . ." + +He paused and Lingard said: "You have been five times down in the +cabin?" + +"Yes. And the sixth time I made up my mind to make you take some +notice of me. I can't be left without orders. There are two ships +to look after, a lot of things to be done. . . ." + +"There is nothing to be done," Lingard interrupted with a mere +murmur but in a tone which made Carter keep silent for a while. + +"Even to know that much would have been something to go by," he +ventured at last. "I couldn't let you sit there with the sun +getting pretty low and a long night before us." + +"I feel stunned yet," said Lingard, looking Carter straight in +the face, as if to watch the effect of that confession. + +"Were you very near that explosion?" asked the young man with +sympathetic curiosity and seeking for some sign on Lingard's +person. But there was nothing. Not a single hair of the Captain's +head seemed to have been singed. + +"Near," muttered Lingard. "It might have been my head." He +pressed it with both hands, then let them fall. "What about that +man?" he asked, brusquely. "Where did he come from? . . . I +suppose he is dead now," he added in an envious tone. + +"No, sir. He must have as many lives as a cat," answered Carter. +"I will tell you how it was. As I said before I wasn't going to +give you up, dead or alive, so yesterday when the sun went down a +little in the afternoon I had two of our boats manned and pulled +in shore, taking soundings to find a passage if there was one. I +meant to go back and look for you with the brig or without the +brig--but that doesn't matter now. There were three or four +floating logs in sight. One of the Calashes in my boat made out +something red on one of them. I thought it was worth while to go +and see what it was. It was that man's sarong. It had got +entangled among the branches and prevented him rolling off into +the water. I was never so glad, I assure you, as when we found +out that he was still breathing. If we could only nurse him back +to life, I thought, he could perhaps tell me a lot of things. The +log on which he hung had come out of the mouth of the creek and +he couldn't have been more than half a day on it by my +calculation. I had him taken down the main hatchway and put into +a hammock in the 'tween-decks. He only just breathed then, but +some time during the night he came to himself and got out of the +hammock to lie down on a mat. I suppose he was more comfortable +that way. He recovered his speech only this morning and I went +down at once and told you of it, but you took no notice. I told +you also who he was but I don't know whether you heard me or +not." + +"I don't remember," said Lingard under his breath. + +"They are wonderful, those Malays. This morning he was only half +alive, if that much, and now I understand he has been talking to +Wasub for an hour. Will you go down to see him, sir, or shall I +send a couple of men to carry him on deck?" + +Lingard looked bewildered for a moment. + +"Who on earth is he?" he asked. + +"Why, it's that fellow whom you sent out, that night I met you, +to catch our first gig. What do they call him? Jaffir, I think. +Hasn't he been with you ashore, sir? Didn't he find you with the +letter I gave him for you? A most determined looking chap. I knew +him again the moment we got him off the log." + +Lingard seized hold of the royal backstay within reach of his +hand. Jaffir! Jaffir! Faithful above all others; the messenger of +supreme moments; the reckless and devoted servant! Lingard felt a +crushing sense of despair. "No, I can't face this," he whispered +to himself, looking at the coast black as ink now before his eyes +in the world's shadow that was slowly encompassing the grey +clearness of the Shallow Waters. "Send Wasub to me. I am going +down into the cabin." + +He crossed over to the companion, then checking himself suddenly: +"Was there a boat from the yacht during the day?" he asked as if +struck by a sudden thought.--"No, sir," answered Carter. "We had +no communication with the yacht to-day."--"Send Wasub to me," +repeated Lingard in a stern voice as he went down the stairs. + +The old serang coming in noiselessly saw his Captain as he had +seen him many times before, sitting under the gilt thunderbolts, +apparently as strong in his body, in his wealth, and in his +knowledge of secret words that have a power over men and +elements, as ever. The old Malay squatted down within a couple of +feet from Lingard, leaned his back against the satinwood panel of +the bulkhead, then raising his old eyes with a watchful and +benevolent expression to the white man's face, clasped his hands +between his knees. + +"Wasub, you have learned now everything. Is there no one left +alive but Jaffir? Are they all dead?" + +"May you live!" answered Wasub; and Lingard whispered an appalled +"All dead!" to which Wasub nodded slightly twice. His cracked +voice had a lamenting intonation. "It is all true! It is all +true! You are left alone, Tuan; you are left alone!" + +"It was their destiny," said Lingard at last, with forced +calmness. "But has Jaffir told you of the manner of this +calamity? How is it that he alone came out alive from it to be +found by you?" + +"He was told by his lord to depart and he obeyed," began Wasub, +fixing his eyes on the deck and speaking just loud enough to be +heard by Lingard, who, bending forward in his seat, shrank +inwardly from every word and yet would not have missed a single +one of them for anything. + +For the catastrophe had fallen on his head like a bolt from the +blue in the early morning hours of the day before. At the first +break of dawn he had been sent for to r‚sum‚ his talk with +Belarab. He had felt suddenly Mrs. Travers remove her hand from +his head. Her voice speaking intimately into his ear: "Get up. +There are some people coming," had recalled him to himself. He +had got up from the ground. The light was dim, the air full of +mist; and it was only gradually that he began to make out forms +above his head and about his feet: trees, houses, men sleeping on +the ground. He didn't recognize them. It was but a cruel change +of dream. Who could tell what was real in this world? He looked +about him, dazedly; he was still drunk with the deep draught of +oblivion he had conquered for himself. Yes--but it was she who +had let him snatch the cup. He looked down at the woman on the +bench. She moved not. She had remained like that, still for +hours, giving him a waking dream of rest without end, in an +infinity of happiness without sound and movement, without +thought, without joy; but with an infinite ease of content, like +a world-embracing reverie breathing the air of sadness and +scented with love. For hours she had not moved. + +"You are the most generous of women," he said. He bent over her. +Her eyes were wide open. Her lips felt cold. It did not shock +him. After he stood up he remained near her. Heat is a consuming +thing, but she with her cold lips seemed to him +indestructible--and, perhaps, immortal! + +Again he stooped, but this time it was only to kiss the fringe of +her head scarf. Then he turned away to meet the three men, who, +coming round the corner of the hut containing the prisoners, were +approaching him with measured steps. They desired his presence in +the Council room. Belarab was awake. + +They also expressed their satisfaction at finding the white man +awake, because Belarab wanted to impart to him information of the +greatest importance. It seemed to Lingard that he had been awake +ever since he could remember. It was as to being alive that he +felt not so sure. He had no doubt of his existence; but was this +life--this profound indifference, this strange contempt for what +his eyes could see, this distaste for words, this unbelief in the +importance of things and men? He tried to regain possession of +himself, his old self which had things to do, words to speak as +well as to hear. But it was too difficult. He was seduced away by +the tense feeling of existence far superior to the mere +consciousness of life, and which in its immensity of +contradictions, delight, dread, exultation and despair could not +be faced and yet was not to be evaded. There was no peace in it. +But who wanted peace? Surrender was better, the dreadful ease of +slack limbs in the sweep of an enormous tide and in a divine +emptiness of mind. If this was existence then he knew that he +existed. And he knew that the woman existed, too, in the sweep of +the tide, without speech, without movement, without heat! +Indestructible--and, perhaps, immortal! + + + +VII + +With the sublime indifference of a man who has had a glimpse +through the open doors of Paradise and is no longer careful of +mere life, Lingard had followed Belarab's anxious messengers. The +stockade was waking up in a subdued resonance of voices. Men were +getting up from the ground, fires were being rekindled. Draped +figures flitted in the mist amongst the buildings; and through +the mat wall of a bamboo house Lingard heard the feeble wailing +of a child. A day of mere life was beginning; but in the Chief's +great Council room several wax candles and a couple of cheap +European lamps kept the dawn at bay, while the morning mist which +could not be kept out made a faint reddish halo round every +flame. + +Belarab was not only awake, but he even looked like a man who had +not slept for a long time. The creator of the Shore of Refuge, +the weary Ruler of the Settlement, with his scorn of the unrest +and folly of men, was angry with his white friend who was always +bringing his desires and his troubles to his very door. Belarab +did not want any one to die but neither did he want any one in +particular to live. What he was concerned about was to preserve +the mystery and the power of his melancholy hesitations. These +delicate things were menaced by Lingard's brusque movements, by +that passionate white man who believed in more than one God and +always seemed to doubt the power of Destiny. Belarab was +profoundly annoyed. He was also genuinely concerned, for he liked +Lingard. He liked him not only for his strength, which protected +his clear-minded scepticism from those dangers that beset all +rulers, but he liked him also for himself. That man of infinite +hesitations, born from a sort of mystic contempt for Allah's +creation, yet believed absolutely both in Lingard's power and in +his boldness. Absolutely. And yet, in the marvellous consistency +of his temperament, now that the moment had come, he dreaded to +put both power and fortitude to the test. + +Lingard could not know that some little time before the first +break of dawn one of Belarab's spies in the Settlement had found +his way inside the stockade at a spot remote from the lagoon, and +that a very few moments after Lingard had left the Chief in +consequence of Jorgenson's rockets, Belarab was listening to an +amazing tale of Hassim and Immada's capture and of Tengga's +determination, very much strengthened by that fact, to obtain +possession of the Emma, either by force or by negotiation, or by +some crafty subterfuge in which the Rajah and his sister could be +made to play their part. In his mistrust of the universe, which +seemed almost to extend to the will of God himself, Belarab was +very much alarmed, for the material power of Daman's piratical +crowd was at Tengga's command; and who could tell whether this +Wajo Rajah would remain loyal in the circumstances? It was also +very characteristic of him whom the original settlers of the +Shore of Refuge called the Father of Safety, that he did not say +anything of this to Lingard, for he was afraid of rousing +Lingard's fierce energy which would even carry away himself and +all his people and put the peace of so many years to the sudden +hazard of a battle. + +Therefore Belarab set himself to persuade Lingard on general +considerations to deliver the white men, who really belonged to +Daman, to that supreme Chief of the Illanuns and by this simple +proceeding detach him completely from Tengga. Why should he, +Belarab, go to war against half the Settlement on their account? +It was not necessary, it was not reasonable. It would be even in +a manner a sin to begin a strife in a community of True +Believers. Whereas with an offer like that in his hand he could +send an embassy to Tengga who would see there at once the +downfall of his purposes and the end of his hopes. At once! That +moment! . . . Afterward the question of a ransom could be +arranged with Daman in which he, Belarab, would mediate in the +fullness of his recovered power, without a rival and in the +sincerity of his heart. And then, if need be, he could put forth +all his power against the chief of the sea-vagabonds who would, +as a matter of fact, be negotiating under the shadow of the +sword. + +Belarab talked, low-voiced and dignified, with now and then a +subtle intonation, a persuasive inflexion or a half-melancholy +smile in the course of the argument. What encouraged him most was +the changed aspect of his white friend. The fierce power of his +personality seemed to have turned into a dream. Lingard listened, +growing gradually inscrutable in his continued silence, but +remaining gentle in a sort of rapt patience as if lapped in the +wings of the Angel of Peace himself. Emboldened by that +transformation, Belarab's counsellors seated on the mats murmured +loudly their assent to the views of the Chief. Through the +thickening white mist of tropical lands, the light of the +tropical day filtered into the hall. One of the wise men got up +from the floor and with prudent fingers began extinguishing the +waxlights one by one. He hesitated to touch the lamps, the flames +of which looked yellow and cold. A puff of the morning breeze +entered the great room, faint and chill. Lingard, facing Belarab +in a wooden armchair, with slack limbs and in the divine +emptiness of a mind enchanted by a glimpse of Paradise, shuddered +profoundly. + +A strong voice shouted in the doorway without any ceremony and +with a sort of jeering accent: + +"Tengga's boats are out in the mist." + +Lingard half rose from his seat, Belarab himself could not +repress a start. Lingard's attitude was a listening one, but +after a moment of hesitation he ran out of the hall. The inside +of the stockade was beginning to buzz like a disturbed hive. + +Outside Belarab's house Lingard slowed his pace. The mist still +hung. A great sustained murmur pervaded it and the blurred forms +of men were all moving outward from the centre toward the +palisades. Somewhere amongst the buildings a gong clanged. +D'Alcacer's raised voice was heard: + +"What is happening?" + +Lingard was passing then close to the prisoners' house. There was +a group of armed men below the verandah and above their heads he +saw Mrs. Travers by the side of d'Alcacer. The fire by which +Lingard had spent the night was extinguished, its embers +scattered, and the bench itself lay overturned. Mrs. Travers must +have run up on the verandah at the first alarm. She and d'Alcacer +up there seemed to dominate the tumult which was now subsiding. +Lingard noticed the scarf across Mrs. Travers' face. D'Alcacer +was bareheaded. He shouted again: + +"What's the matter?" + +"I am going to see," shouted Lingard back. + +He resisted the impulse to join those two, dominate the tumult, +let it roll away from under his feet--the mere life of men, vain +like a dream and interfering with the tremendous sense of his own +existence. He resisted it, he could hardly have told why. Even +the sense of self-preservation had abandoned him. There was a +throng of people pressing close about him yet careful not to get +in his way. Surprise, concern, doubt were depicted on all those +faces; but there were some who observed that the great white man +making his way to the lagoon side of the stockade wore a fixed +smile. He asked at large: + +"Can one see any distance over the water?" + +One of Belarab's headmen who was nearest to him answered: + +"The mist has thickened. If you see anything, Tuan, it will be +but a shadow of things." + +The four sides of the stockade had been manned by that time. +Lingard, ascending the banquette, looked out and saw the lagoon +shrouded in white, without as much as a shadow on it, and so +still that not even the sound of water lapping the shore reached +his ears. He found himself in profound accord with this blind and +soundless peace. + +"Has anything at all been seen?" he asked incredulously. + +Four men were produced at once who had seen a dark mass of boats +moving in the light of the dawn. Others were sent for. He hardly +listened to them. His thought escaped him and he stood +motionless, looking out into the unstirring mist pervaded by the +perfect silence. Presently Belarab joined him, escorted by three +grave, swarthy men, himself dark-faced, stroking his short grey +beard with impenetrable composure. He said to Lingard, "Your +white man doesn't fight," to which Lingard answered, "There is +nothing to fight against. What your people have seen, Belarab, +were indeed but shadows on the water." Belarab murmured, "You +ought to have allowed me to make friends with Daman last night." + +A faint uneasiness was stealing into Lingard's breast. + +A moment later d'Alcacer came up, inconspicuously watched over by +two men with lances, and to his anxious inquiry Lingard said: "I +don't think there is anything going on. Listen how still +everything is. The only way of bringing the matter to a test +would be to persuade Belarab to let his men march out and make an +attack on Tengga's stronghold this moment. Then we would learn +something. But I couldn't persuade Belarab to march out into this +fog. Indeed, an expedition like this might end badly. I myself +don't believe that all Tengga's people are on the lagoon. . . . +Where is Mrs. Travers?" + +The question made d'Alcacer start by its abruptness which +revealed the woman's possession of that man's mind. "She is with +Don Martin, who is better but feels very weak. If we are to be +given up, he will have to be carried out to his fate. I can +depict to myself the scene. Don Martin carried shoulder high +surrounded by those barbarians with spears, and Mrs. Travers with +myself walking on each side of the stretcher. Mrs. Travers has +declared to me her intention to go out with us." + +"Oh, she has declared her intention," murmured Lingard, +absent-mindedly. + +D'Alcacer felt himself completely abandoned by that man. And +within two paces of him he noticed the group of Belarab and his +three swarthy attendants in their white robes, preserving an air +of serene detachment. For the first time since the stranding on +the coast d'Alcacer's heart sank within him. "But perhaps," he +went on, "this Moor may not in the end insist on giving us up to +a cruel death, Captain Lingard." + +"He wanted to give you up in the middle of the night, a few hours +ago," said Lingard, without even looking at d'Alcacer who raised +his hands a little and let them fall. Lingard sat down on the +breech of a heavy piece mounted on a naval carriage so as to +command the lagoon. He folded his arms on his breast. D'Alcacer +asked, gently: + +"We have been reprieved then?" + +"No," said Lingard. "It's I who was reprieved." + +A long silence followed. Along the whole line of the manned +stockade the whisperings had ceased. The vibrations of the gong +had died out, too. Only the watchers perched in the highest +boughs of the big tree made a slight rustle amongst the leaves. + +"What are you thinking of, Captain Lingard?" d'Alcacer asked in a +low voice. Lingard did not change his position. + +"I am trying to keep it off," he said in the same tone. + +"What? Trying to keep thought off?" + +"Yes." + +"Is this the time for such experiments?" asked d'Alcacer. + +"Why not? It's my reprieve. Don't grudge it to me, Mr. +d'Alcacer." + +"Upon my word I don't. But isn't it dangerous?" + +"You will have to take your chance." + +D'Alcacer had a moment of internal struggle. He asked himself +whether he should tell Lingard that Mrs. Travers had come to the +stockade with some sort of message from Jorgenson. He had it on +the tip of his tongue to advise Lingard to go and see Mrs. +Travers and ask her point blank whether she had anything to tell +him; but before he could make up his mind the voices of invisible +men high up in the tree were heard reporting the thinning of the +fog. This caused a stir to run along the four sides of the +stockade. + +Lingard felt the draught of air in his face, the motionless mist +began to drive over the palisades and, suddenly, the lagoon came +into view with a great blinding glitter of its wrinkled surface +and the faint sound of its wash rising all along the shore. A +multitude of hands went up to shade the eager eyes, and +exclamations of wonder burst out from many men at the sight of a +crowd of canoes of various sizes and kinds lying close together +with the effect as of an enormous raft, a little way off the side +of the Emma. The excited voices rose higher and higher. There was +no doubt about Tengga's being on the lagoon. But what was +Jorgenson about? The Emma lay as if abandoned by her keeper and +her crew, while the mob of mixed boats seemed to be meditating an +attack. + +For all his determination to keep thought off to the very last +possible moment, Lingard could not defend himself from a sense of +wonder and fear. What was Jorgenson about? For a moment Lingard +expected the side of the Emma to wreath itself in puffs of smoke, +but an age seemed to elapse without the sound of a shot reaching +his ears. + +The boats were afraid to close. They were hanging off, +irresolute; but why did Jorgenson not put an end to their +hesitation by a volley or two of musketry if only over their +heads? Through the anguish of his perplexity Lingard found +himself returning to life, to mere life with its sense of pain +and mortality, like a man awakened from a dream by a stab in the +breast. What did this silence of the Emma mean? Could she have +been already carried in the fog? But that was unthinkable. Some +sounds of resistance must have been heard. No, the boats hung off +because they knew with what desperate defence they would meet; +and perhaps Jorgenson knew very well what he was doing by holding +his fire to the very last moment and letting the craven hearts +grow cold with the fear of a murderous discharge that would have +to be faced. What was certain was that this was the time for +Belarab to open the great gate and let his men go out, display +his power, sweep through the further end of the Settlement, +destroy Tengga's defences, do away once for all with the absurd +rivalry of that intriguing amateur boat-builder. Lingard turned +eagerly toward Belarab but saw the Chief busy looking across the +lagoon through a long glass resting on the shoulder of a stooping +slave. He was motionless like a carving. Suddenly he let go the +long glass which some ready hands caught as it fell and said to +Lingard: + +"No fight." + +"How do you know?" muttered Lingard, astounded, + +"There are three empty sampans alongside the ladder," said +Belarab in a just audible voice. "There is bad talk there." + +"Talk? I don't understand," said Lingard, slowly. + +But Belarab had turned toward his three attendants in white +robes, with shaven polls under skull-caps of plaited grass, with +prayer beads hanging from their wrists, and an air of superior +calm on their dark faces: companions of his desperate days, men +of blood once and now imperturbable in their piety and wisdom of +trusted counsellors. + +"This white man is being betrayed," he murmured to them with the +greatest composure. + +D'Alcacer, uncomprehending, watched the scene: the Man of Fate +puzzled and fierce like a disturbed lion, the white-robed Moors, +the multitude of half-naked barbarians, squatting by the guns, +standing by the loopholes in the immobility of an arranged +display. He saw Mrs. Travers on the verandah of the prisoners' +house, an anxious figure with a white scarf over her head. Mr. +Travers was no doubt too weak after his fit of fever to come +outside. If it hadn't been for that, all the whites would have +been in sight of each other at the very moment of the catastrophe +which was to give them back to the claims of their life, at the +cost of other lives sent violently out of the world. D'Alcacer +heard Lingard asking loudly for the long glass and saw Belarab +make a sign with his hand, when he felt the earth receive a +violent blow from underneath. While he staggered to it the +heavens split over his head with a crash in the lick of a red +tongue of flame; and a sudden dreadful gloom fell all round the +stunned d'Alcacer, who beheld with terror the morning sun, robbed +of its rays, glow dull and brown through the sombre murk which +had taken possession of the universe. The Emma had blown up; and +when the rain of shattered timbers and mangled corpses falling +into the lagoon had ceased, the cloud of smoke hanging motionless +under the livid sun cast its shadow afar on the Shore of Refuge +where all strife had come to an end. + +A great wail of terror ascended from the Settlement and was +succeeded by a profound silence. People could be seen bolting in +unreasoning panic away from the houses and into the fields. On +the lagoon the raft of boats had broken up. Some of them were +sinking, others paddling away in all directions. What was left +above water of the Emma had burst into a clear flame under the +shadow of the cloud, the great smoky cloud that hung solid and +unstirring above the tops of the forest, visible for miles up and +down the coast and over the Shallows. + +The first person to recover inside the stockade was Belarab +himself. Mechanically he murmured the exclamation of wonder, "God +is great," and looked at Lingard. But Lingard was not looking at +him. The shock of the explosion had robbed him of speech and +movement. He stared at the Emma blazing in a distant and +insignificant flame under the sinister shadow of the cloud +created by Jorgenson's mistrust and contempt for the life of men. +Belarab turned away. His opinion had changed. He regarded Lingard +no longer as a betrayed man but the effect was the same. He was +no longer a man of any importance. What Belarab really wanted now +was to see all the white people clear out of the lagoon as soon +as possible. Presently he ordered the gate to be thrown open and +his armed men poured out to take possession of the Settlement. +Later Tengga's houses were set on fire and Belarab, mounting a +fiery pony, issued forth to make a triumphal progress surrounded +by a great crowd of headmen and guards. + +That night the white people left the stockade in a cortege of +torch bearers. Mr. Travers had to be carried down to the beach, +where two of Belarab's war-boats awaited their distinguished +passengers. Mrs. Travers passed through the gate on d'Alcacer's +arm. Her face was half veiled. She moved through the throng of +spectators displayed in the torchlight looking straight before +her. Belarab, standing in front of a group of headmen, pretended +not to see the white people as they went by. With Lingard he +shook hands, murmuring the usual formulas of friendship; and when +he heard the great white man say, "You shall never see me again," +he felt immensely relieved. Belarab did not want to see that +white man again, but as he responded to the pressure of Lingard's +hand he had a grave smile. + +"God alone knows the future," he said. + +Lingard walked to the beach by himself, feeling a stranger to all +men and abandoned by the All-Knowing God. By that time the first +boat with Mr. and Mrs. Travers had already got away out of the +blood-red light thrown by the torches upon the water. D'Alcacer +and Lingard followed in the second. Presently the dark shade of +the creek, walled in by the impenetrable forest, closed round +them and the splash of the paddles echoed in the still, damp air. + +"How do you think this awful accident happened?" asked d'Alcacer, +who had been sitting silent by Lingard's side. + +"What is an accident?" said Lingard with a great effort. "Where +did you hear of such a thing? Accident! Don't disturb me, Mr. +d'Alcacer. I have just come back to life and it has closed on me +colder and darker than the grave itself. Let me get used . . . I +can't bear the sound of a human voice yet." + + + +VIII + +And now, stoical in the cold and darkness of his regained life, +Lingard had to listen to the voice of Wasub telling him Jaffir's +story. The old serang's face expressed a profound dejection and +there was infinite sadness in the flowing murmur of his words. + +"Yes, by Allah! They were all there: that tyrannical Tengga, +noisy like a fool; the Rajah Hassim, a ruler without a country; +Daman, the wandering chief, and the three Pangerans of the +sea-robbers. They came on board boldly, for Tuan Jorgenson had +given them permission, and their talk was that you, Tuan, were a +willing captive in Belarab's stockade. They said they had waited +all night for a message of peace from you or from Belarab. But +there was nothing, and with the first sign of day they put out on +the lagoon to make friends with Tuan Jorgenson; for, they said, +you, Tuan, were as if you had not been, possessing no more power +than a dead man, the mere slave of these strange white people, +and Belarab's prisoner. Thus Tengga talked. God had taken from +him all wisdom and all fear. And then he must have thought he was +safe while Rajah Hassim and the lady Immada were on board. I tell +you they sat there in the midst of your enemies, captive! The +lady Immada, with her face covered, mourned to herself. The Rajah +Hassim made a sign to Jaffir and Jaffir came to stand by his side +and talked to his lord. The main hatch was open and many of the +Illanuns crowded there to look down at the goods that were inside +the ship. They had never seen so much loot in their lives. Jaffir +and his lord could hear plainly Tuan Jorgenson and Tengga talking +together. Tengga discoursed loudly and his words were the words +of a doomed man, for he was asking Tuan Jorgenson to give up the +arms and everything that was on board the Emma to himself and to +Daman. And then, he said, 'We shall fight Belarab and make +friends with these strange white people by behaving generously to +them and letting them sail away unharmed to their own country. We +don't want them here. You, Tuan Jorgenson, are the only white man +I care for.' They heard Tuan Jorgenson say to Tengga: 'Now you +have told me everything there is in your mind you had better go +ashore with your friends and return to-morrow.' And Tengga asked: +'Why! would you fight me to-morrow rather than live many days in +peace with me?' and he laughed and slapped his thigh. And Tuan +Jorgenson answered: + +"'No, I won't fight you. But even a spider will give the fly time +to say its prayers.' + +"Tuan Jorgenson's voice sounded very strange and louder than ever +anybody had heard it before. O Rajah Laut, Jaffir and the white +man had been waiting, too, all night for some sign from you; a +shot fired or a signal-fire, lighted to strengthen their hearts. +There had been nothing. Rajah Hassim, whispering, ordered Jaffir +to take the first opportunity to leap overboard and take to you +his message of friendship and good-bye. Did the Rajah and Jaffir +know what was coming? Who can tell? But what else could they see +than calamity for all Wajo men, whatever Tuan Jorgenson had made +up his mind to do? Jaffir prepared to obey his lord, and yet with +so many enemies' boats in the water he did not think he would +ever reach the shore; and as to yourself he was not at all sure +that you were still alive. But he said nothing of this to his +Rajah. Nobody was looking their way. Jaffir pressed his lord's +hand to his breast and waited his opportunity. The fog began to +blow away and presently everything was disclosed to the sight. +Jorgenson was on his feet, he was holding a lighted cigar between +his fingers. Tengga was sitting in front of him on one of the +chairs the white people had used. His followers were pressing +round him, with Daman and Sentot, who were muttering +incantations; and even the Pangerans had moved closer to the +hatchway. Jaffir's opportunity had come but he lingered by the +side of his Rajah. In the clear air the sun shone with great +force. Tuan Jorgenson looked once more toward Belarab's stockade, +O Rajah Laut! But there was nothing there, not even a flag +displayed that had not been there before. Jaffir looked that way, +too, and as he turned his head he saw Tuan Jorgenson, in the +midst of twenty spear-blades that could in an instant have been +driven into his breast, put the cigar in his mouth and jump down +the hatchway. At that moment Rajah Hassim gave Jaffir a push +toward the side and Jaffir leaped overboard. + +"He was still in the water when all the world was darkened round +him as if the life of the sun had been blown out of it in a +crash. A great wave came along and washed him on shore, while +pieces of wood, iron, and the limbs of torn men were splashing +round him in the water. He managed to crawl out of the mud. +Something had hit him while he was swimming and he thought he +would die. But life stirred in him. He had a message for you. For +a long time he went on crawling under the big trees on his hands +and knees, for there is no rest for a messenger till the message +is delivered. At last he found himself on the left bank of the +creek. + +And still he felt life stir in him. So he started to swim across, +for if you were in this world you were on the other side. While +he swam he felt his strength abandoning him. He managed to +scramble on to a drifting log and lay on it like one who is dead, +till we pulled him into one of our boats." + +Wasub ceased. It seemed to Lingard that it was impossible for +mortal man to suffer more than he suffered in the succeeding +moment of silence crowded by the mute images as of universal +destruction. He felt himself gone to pieces as though the violent +expression of Jorgenson's intolerable mistrust of the life of men +had shattered his soul, leaving his body robbed of all power of +resistance and of all fortitude, a prey forever to infinite +remorse and endless regrets. + +"Leave me, Wasub," he said. "They are all dead--but I would +sleep." + +Wasub raised his dumb old eyes to the white man's face. + +"Tuan, it is necessary that you should hear Jaffir," he said, +patiently. + +"Is he going to die?" asked Lingard in a low, cautious tone as +though he were afraid of the sound of his own voice. + +"Who can tell?" Wasub's voice sounded more patient than ever. +"There is no wound on his body but, O Tuan, he does not wish to +live." + +"Abandoned by his God," muttered Lingard to himself. + +Wasub waited a little before he went on, "And, Tuan, he has a +message for you." + +"Of course. Well, I don't want to hear it." + +"It is from those who will never speak to you again," Wasub +persevered, sadly. "It is a great trust. A Rajah's own words. It +is difficult for Jaffir to die. He keeps on muttering about a +ring that was for you, and that he let pass out of his care. It +was a great talisman!" + +"Yes. But it did not work this time. And if I go and tell Jaffir +why he will be able to tell his Rajah, O Wasub, since you say +that he is going to die. . . . I wonder where they will meet," he +muttered to himself. + +Once more Wasub raised his eyes to Lingard's face. "Paradise is +the lot of all True Believers," he whispered, firm in his simple +faith. + +The man who had been undone by a glimpse of Paradise exchanged a +profound look with the old Malay. Then he got up. On his passage +to the main hatchway the commander of the brig met no one on the +decks, as if all mankind had given him up except the old man who +preceded him and that other man dying in the deepening twilight, +who was awaiting his coming. Below, in the light of the hatchway, +he saw a young Calash with a broad yellow face and his wiry hair +sticking up in stiff wisps through the folds of his +head-kerchief, holding an earthenware water-jar to the lips of +Jaffir extended on his back on a pile of mats. + +A languid roll of the already glazed eyeballs, a mere stir of +black and white in the gathering dusk showed that the faithful +messenger of princes was aware of the presence of the man who had +been so long known to him and his people as the King of the Sea. +Lingard knelt down close to Jaffir's head, which rolled a little +from side to side and then became still, staring at a beam of the +upper deck. Lingard bent his ear to the dark lips. "Deliver your +message" he said in a gentle tone. + +"The Rajah wished to hold your hand once more," whispered Jaffir +so faintly that Lingard had to guess the words rather than hear +them. "I was to tell you," he went on--and stopped suddenly. + +"What were you to tell me?" + +"To forget everything," said Jaffir with a loud effort as if +beginning a long speech. After that he said nothing more till +Lingard murmured, "And the lady Immada?" + +Jaffir collected all his strength. "She hoped no more," he +uttered, distinctly. "The order came to her while she mourned, +veiled, apart. I didn't even see her face." + +Lingard swayed over the dying man so heavily that Wasub, standing +near by, hastened to catch him by the shoulder. Jaffir seemed +unaware of anything, and went on staring at the beam. + +"Can you hear me, O Jaffir?" asked Lingard. + +"I hear." + +"I never had the ring. Who could bring it to me?" + +"We gave it to the white woman--may Jehannum be her lot!" + +"No! It shall be my lot," said Lingard with despairing force, +while Wasub raised both his hands in dismay. "For, listen, +Jaffir, if she had given the ring to me it would have been to one +that was dumb, deaf, and robbed of all courage." + +It was impossible to say whether Jaffir had heard. He made no +sound, there was no change in his awful stare, but his prone body +moved under the cotton sheet as if to get further away from the +white man. Lingard got up slowly and making a sign to Wasub to +remain where he was, went up on deck without giving another +glance to the dying man. Again it seemed to him that he was +pacing the quarter-deck of a deserted ship. The mulatto steward, +watching through the crack of the pantry door, saw the Captain +stagger into the cuddy and fling-to the door behind him with a +crash. For more than an hour nobody approached that closed door +till Carter coming down the companion stairs spoke without +attempting to open it. + +"Are you there, sir?" The answer, "You may come in," comforted +the young man by its strong resonance. He went in. + +"Well?" + +"Jaffir is dead. This moment. I thought you would want to know." + +Lingard looked persistently at Carter, thinking that now Jaffir +was dead there was no one left on the empty earth to speak to him +a word of reproach; no one to know the greatness of his +intentions, the bond of fidelity between him and Hassim and +Immada, the depth of his affection for those people, the +earnestness of his visions, and the unbounded trust that was his +reward. By the mad scorn of Jorgenson flaming up against the life +of men, all this was as if it had never been. It had become a +secret locked up in his own breast forever. + +"Tell Wasub to open one of the long-cloth bales in the hold, Mr. +Carter, and give the crew a cotton sheet to bury him decently +according to their faith. Let it be done to-night. They must have +the boats, too. I suppose they will want to take him on the +sandbank." + +"Yes, sir," said Carter. + +"Let them have what they want, spades, torches. . . . Wasub +will chant the right words. Paradise is the lot of all True +Believers. Do you understand me, Mr. Carter? Paradise! I wonder +what it will be for him! Unless he gets messages to carry through +the jungle, avoiding ambushes, swimming in storms and knowing no +rest, he won't like it." + +Carter listened with an unmoved face. It seemed to him that the +Captain had forgotten his presence. + +"And all the time he will be sleeping on that sandbank," Lingard +began again, sitting in his old place under the gilt thunderbolts +suspended over his head with his elbows on the table and his +hands to his temples. "If they want a board to set up at the +grave let them have a piece of an oak plank. It will stay +there--till the next monsoon. Perhaps." + +Carter felt uncomfortable before that tense stare which just +missed him and in that confined cabin seemed awful in its +piercing and far-off expression. But as he had not been dismissed +he did not like to go away. + +"Everything will be done as you wish it, sir," he said. "I +suppose the yacht will be leaving the first thing to-morrow +morning, sir." + +"If she doesn't we must give her a solid shot or two to liven her +up--eh, Mr. Carter?" + +Carter did not know whether to smile or to look horrified. In the +end he did both, but as to saying anything he found it +impossible. But Lingard did not expect an answer. + +"I believe you are going to stay with me, Mr. Carter?" + +"I told you, sir, I am your man if you want me." + +"The trouble is, Mr. Carter, that I am no longer the man to whom +you spoke that night in Carimata." + +"Neither am I, sir, in a manner of speaking." + +Lingard, relaxing the tenseness of his stare, looked at the young +man, thoughtfully. + +"After all, it is the brig that will want you. She will never +change. The finest craft afloat in these seas. She will carry me +about as she did before, but . . ." + +He unclasped his hands, made a sweeping gesture. + +Carter gave all his naive sympathy to that man who had certainly +rescued the white people but seemed to have lost his own soul in +the attempt. Carter had heard something from Wasub. He had made +out enough of this story from the old serang's pidgin English to +know that the Captain's native friends, one of them a woman, had +perished in a mysterious catastrophe. But the why of it, and how +it came about, remained still quite incomprehensible to him. Of +course, a man like the Captain would feel terribly cut up. . . . + +"You will be soon yourself again, sir," he said in the kindest +possible tone. + +With the same simplicity Lingard shook his head. He was thinking +of the dead Jaffir with his last message delivered and untroubled +now by all these matters of the earth. He had been ordered to +tell him to forget everything. Lingard had an inward shudder. In +the dismay of his heart he might have believed his brig to lie +under the very wing of the Angel of Desolation--so oppressive, so +final, and hopeless seemed the silence in which he and Carter +looked at each other, wistfully. + +Lingard reached for a sheet of paper amongst several lying on the +table, took up a pen, hesitated a moment, and then wrote: + +"Meet me at day-break on the sandbank." + +He addressed the envelope to Mrs. Travers, Yacht Hermit, and +pushed it across the table. + +"Send this on board the schooner at once, Mr. Carter. Wait a +moment. When our boats shove off for the sandbank have the +forecastle gun fired. I want to know when that dead man has left +the ship." + +He sat alone, leaning his head on his hand, listening, listening +endlessly, for the report of the gun. Would it never come? When +it came at last muffled, distant, with a slight shock through the +body of the brig he remained still with his head leaning on his +hand but with a distinct conviction, with an almost physical +certitude, that under the cotton sheet shrouding the dead man +something of himself, too, had left the ship. + + + +IX + +In a roomy cabin, furnished and fitted with austere comfort, Mr. +Travers reposed at ease in a low bed-place under a snowy white +sheet and a light silk coverlet, his head sunk in a white pillow +of extreme purity. A faint scent of lavender hung about the fresh +linen. Though lying on his back like a person who is seriously +ill Mr. Travers was conscious of nothing worse than a great +fatigue. Mr. Travers' restfulness had something faintly +triumphant in it. To find himself again on board his yacht had +soothed his vanity and had revived his sense of his own +importance. He contemplated it in a distant perspective, restored +to its proper surroundings and unaffected by an adventure too +extraordinary to trouble a superior mind or even to remain in +one's memory for any length of time. He was not responsible. Like +many men ambitious of directing the affairs of a nation, Mr. +Travers disliked the sense of responsibility. He would not have +been above evading it in case of need, but with perverse +loftiness he really, in his heart, scorned it. That was the +reason why he was able to lie at rest and enjoy a sense of +returning vigour. But he did not care much to talk as yet, and +that was why the silence in the stateroom had lasted for hours. +The bulkhead lamp had a green silk shade. It was unnecessary to +admit for a moment the existence of impudence or ruffianism. A +discreet knocking at the cabin door sounded deferential. + +Mrs. Travers got up to see what was wanted, and returned without +uttering a single word to the folding armchair by the side of the +bed-place, with an envelope in her hand which she tore open in +the greenish light. Mr. Travers remained incurious but his wife +handed to him an unfolded sheet of paper which he condescended to +hold up to his eyes. It contained only one line of writing. He +let the paper fall on the coverlet and went on reposing as +before. It was a sick man's repose. Mrs. Travers in the armchair, +with her hands on the arm-rests, had a great dignity of attitude. + +"I intend to go," she declared after a time. + +"You intend to go," repeated Mr. Travers in a feeble, deliberate +voice. "Really, it doesn't matter what you decide to do. All this +is of so little importance. It seems to me that there can be no +possible object." + +"Perhaps not," she admitted. "But don't you think that the +uttermost farthing should always be paid?" + +Mr. Travers' head rolled over on the pillow and gave a covertly +scared look at that outspoken woman. But it rolled back again at +once and the whole man remained passive, the very embodiment of +helpless exhaustion. Mrs. Travers noticed this, and had the +unexpected impression that Mr. Travers was not so ill as he +looked. "He's making the most of it. It's a matter of diplomacy," +she thought. She thought this without irony, bitterness, or +disgust. Only her heart sank a little lower and she felt that she +could not remain in the cabin with that man for the rest of the +evening. For all life--yes! But not for that evening. + +"It's simply monstrous," murmured the man, who was either very +diplomatic or very exhausted, in a languid manner. "There is +something abnormal in you." + +Mrs. Travers got up swiftly. + +"One comes across monstrous things. But I assure you that of all +the monsters that wait on what you would call a normal existence +the one I dread most is tediousness. A merciless monster without +teeth or claws. Impotent. Horrible!" + +She left the stateroom, vanishing out of it with noiseless +resolution. No power on earth could have kept her in there for +another minute. On deck she found a moonless night with a velvety +tepid feeling in the air, and in the sky a mass of blurred +starlight, like the tarnished tinsel of a worn-out, very old, +very tedious firmament. The usual routine of the yacht had been +already resumed, the awnings had been stretched aft, a solitary +round lamp had been hung as usual under the main boom. Out of the +deep gloom behind it d'Alcacer, a long, loose figure, lounged in +the dim light across the deck. D'Alcacer had got promptly in +touch with the store of cigarettes he owed to the Governor +General's generosity. A large, pulsating spark glowed, +illuminating redly the design of his lips under the fine dark +moustache, the tip of his nose, his lean chin. D'Alcacer +reproached himself for an unwonted light-heartedness which had +somehow taken possession of him. He had not experienced that sort +of feeling for years. Reprehensible as it was he did not want +anything to disturb it. But as he could not run away openly from +Mrs. Travers he advanced to meet her. + +"I do hope you have nothing to tell me," he said with whimsical +earnestness. + +"I? No! Have you?" + +He assured her he had not, and proffered a request. "Don't let us +tell each other anything, Mrs. Travers. Don't let us think of +anything. I believe it will be the best way to get over the +evening." There was real anxiety in his jesting tone. + +"Very well," Mrs. Travers assented, seriously. "But in that case +we had better not remain together." She asked, then, d'Alcacer to +go below and sit with Mr. Travers who didn't like to be left +alone. "Though he, too, doesn't seem to want to be told +anything," she added, parenthetically, and went on: "But I must +ask you something else, Mr. d'Alcacer. I propose to sit down in +this chair and go to sleep--if I can. Will you promise to call me +about five o'clock? I prefer not to speak to any one on deck, +and, moreover, I can trust you." + +He bowed in silence and went away slowly. Mrs. Travers, turning +her head, perceived a steady light at the brig's yard-arm, very +bright among the tarnished stars. She walked aft and looked over +the taffrail. It was exactly like that other night. She half +expected to hear presently the low, rippling sound of an +advancing boat. But the universe remained without a sound. When +she at last dropped into the deck chair she was absolutely at the +end of her power of thinking. "I suppose that's how the condemned +manage to get some sleep on the night before the execution," she +said to herself a moment before her eyelids closed as if under a +leaden hand. + +She woke up, with her face wet with tears, out of a vivid dream +of Lingard in chain-mail armour and vaguely recalling a Crusader, +but bare-headed and walking away from her in the depths of an +impossible landscape. She hurried on to catch up with him but a +throng of barbarians with enormous turbans came between them at +the last moment and she lost sight of him forever in the flurry +of a ghastly sand-storm. What frightened her most was that she +had not been able to see his face. It was then that she began to +cry over her hard fate. When she woke up the tears were still +rolling down her cheeks and she perceived in the light of the +deck-lamp d'Alcacer arrested a little way off. + +"Did you have to speak to me?" she asked. + +"No," said d'Alcacer. "You didn't give me time. When I came as +far as this I fancied I heard you sobbing. It must have been a +delusion." + +"Oh, no. My face is wet yet. It was a dream. I suppose it is five +o'clock. Thank you for being so punctual. I have something to do +before sunrise." + +D'Alcacer moved nearer. "I know. You have decided to keep an +appointment on the sandbank. Your husband didn't utter twenty +words in all these hours but he managed to tell me that piece of +news." + +"I shouldn't have thought," she murmured, vaguely. + +"He wanted me to understand that it had no importance," stated +d'Alcacer in a very serious tone. + +"Yes. He knows what he is talking about," said Mrs. Travers in +such a bitter tone as to disconcert d'Alcacer for a moment. "I +don't see a single soul about the decks," Mrs. Travers continued, +almost directly. + +"The very watchmen are asleep," said d'Alcacer. + +"There is nothing secret in this expedition, but I prefer not to +call any one. Perhaps you wouldn't mind pulling me off yourself +in our small boat." + +It seemed to her that d'Alcacer showed some hesitation. She +added: "It has no importance, you know." + +He bowed his assent and preceded her down the side in silence. +When she entered the boat he had the sculls ready and directly +she sat down he shoved off. It was so dark yet that but for the +brig's yard-arm light he could not have kept his direction. He +pulled a very deliberate stroke, looking over his shoulder +frequently. It was Mrs. Travers who saw first the faint gleam of +the uncovered sandspit on the black, quiet water. + +"A little more to the left," she said. "No, the other way . . . +" D'Alcacer obeyed her directions but his stroke grew even +slower than before. She spoke again. "Don't you think that the +uttermost farthing should always be paid, Mr. d'Alcacer?" + +D'Alcacer glanced over his shoulder, then: "It would be the only +honourable way. But it may be hard. Too hard for our common +fearful hearts." + +"I am prepared for anything." + +He ceased pulling for a moment . . . "Anything that may be +found on a sandbank," Mrs. Travers went on. "On an arid, +insignificant, and deserted sandbank." + +D'Alcacer gave two strokes and ceased again. + +"There is room for a whole world of suffering on a sandbank, for +all the bitterness and resentment a human soul may be made to +feel." + +"Yes, I suppose you would know," she whispered while he gave a +stroke or two and again glanced over his shoulder. She murmured +the words: + +"Bitterness, resentment," and a moment afterward became aware of +the keel of the boat running up on the sand. But she didn't move, +and d'Alcacer, too, remained seated on the thwart with the blades +of his sculls raised as if ready to drop them and back the dinghy +out into deep water at the first sign. + +Mrs. Travers made no sign, but she asked, abruptly: "Mr. +d'Alcacer, do you think I shall ever come back?" + +Her tone seemed to him to lack sincerity. But who could tell what +this abruptness covered--sincere fear or mere vanity? He asked +himself whether she was playing a part for his benefit, or only +for herself. + +"I don't think you quite understand the situation, Mrs. Travers. +I don't think you have a clear idea, either of his simplicity or +of his visionary's pride." + +She thought, contemptuously, that there were other things which +d'Alcacer didn't know and surrendered to a sudden temptation to +enlighten him a little. + +"You forget his capacity for passion and that his simplicity +doesn't know its own strength." + +There was no mistaking the sincerity of that murmur. "She has +felt it," d'Alcacer said to himself with absolute certitude. He +wondered when, where, how, on what occasion? Mrs. Travers stood +up in the stern sheets suddenly and d'Alcacer leaped on the sand +to help her out of the boat. + +"Hadn't I better hang about here to take you back again?" he +suggested, as he let go her hand. + +"You mustn't!" she exclaimed, anxiously. "You must return to the +yacht. There will be plenty of light in another hour. I will come +to this spot and wave my handkerchief when I want to be taken +off." + +At their feet the shallow water slept profoundly, the ghostly +gleam of the sands baffled the eye by its lack of form. Far off, +the growth of bushes in the centre raised a massive black bulk +against the stars to the southward. Mrs. Travers lingered for a +moment near the boat as if afraid of the strange solitude of this +lonely sandbank and of this lone sea that seemed to fill the +whole encircling universe of remote stars and limitless shadows. +"There is nobody here," she whispered to herself. + +"He is somewhere about waiting for you, or I don't know the man," +affirmed d'Alcacer in an undertone. He gave a vigorous shove +which sent the little boat into the water. + +D'Alcacer was perfectly right. Lingard had come up on deck long +before Mrs. Travers woke up with her face wet with tears. The +burial party had returned hours before and the crew of the brig +were plunged in sleep, except for two watchmen, who at Lingard's +appearance retreated noiselessly from the poop. Lingard, leaning +on the rail, fell into a sombre reverie of his past. Reproachful +spectres crowded the air, animated and vocal, not in the +articulate language of mortals but assailing him with faint sobs, +deep sighs, and fateful gestures. When he came to himself and +turned about they vanished, all but one dark shape without sound +or movement. Lingard looked at it with secret horror. + +"Who's that?" he asked in a troubled voice. + +The shadow moved closer: "It's only me, sir," said Carter, who +had left orders to be called directly the Captain was seen on +deck. + +"Oh, yes, I might have known," mumbled Lingard in some confusion. +He requested Carter to have a boat manned and when after a time +the young man told him that it was ready, he said "All right!" +and remained leaning on his elbow. + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said Carter after a longish silence, +"but are you going some distance?" + +"No, I only want to be put ashore on the sandbank." + +Carter was relieved to hear this, but also surprised. "There is +nothing living there, sir," he said. + +"I wonder," muttered Lingard. + +"But I am certain," Carter insisted. "The last of the women and +children belonging to those cut-throats were taken off by the +sampans which brought you and the yacht-party out." + +He walked at Lingard's elbow to the gangway and listened to his +orders. + +"Directly there is enough light to see flags by, make a signal to +the schooner to heave short on her cable and loose her sails. If +there is any hanging back give them a blank gun, Mr. Carter. I +will have no shilly-shallying. If she doesn't go at the word, by +heavens, I will drive her out. I am still master here--for +another day." + +The overwhelming sense of immensity, of disturbing emptiness, +which affects those who walk on the sands in the midst of the +sea, intimidated Mrs. Travers. The world resembled a limitless +flat shadow which was motionless and elusive. Then against the +southern stars she saw a human form that isolated and lone +appeared to her immense: the shape of a giant outlined amongst +the constellations. As it approached her it shrank to common +proportions, got clear of the stars, lost its awesomeness, and +became menacing in its ominous and silent advance. Mrs. Travers +hastened to speak. + +"You have asked for me. I am come. I trust you will have no +reason to regret my obedience." + +He walked up quite close to her, bent down slightly to peer into +her face. The first of the tropical dawn put its characteristic +cold sheen into the sky above the Shore of Refuge. + +Mrs. Travers did not turn away her head. + +"Are you looking for a change in me? No. You won't see it. Now I +know that I couldn't change even if I wanted to. I am made of +clay that is too hard." + +"I am looking at you for the first time," said Lingard. "I never +could see you before. There were too many things, too many +thoughts, too many people. No, I never saw you before. But now +the world is dead." + +He grasped her shoulders, approaching his face close to hers. She +never flinched. + +"Yes, the world is dead," she said. "Look your fill then. It +won't be for long." + +He let her go as suddenly as though she had struck him. The cold +white light of the tropical dawn had crept past the zenith now +and the expanse of the shallow waters looked cold, too, without +stir or ripple within the enormous rim of the horizon where, to +the west, a shadow lingered still. + +"Take my arm," he said. + +She did so at once, and turning their backs on the two ships they +began to walk along the sands, but they had not made many steps +when Mrs. Travers perceived an oblong mound with a board planted +upright at one end. Mrs. Travers knew that part of the sands. It +was here she used to walk with her husband and d'Alcacer every +evening after dinner, while the yacht lay stranded and her boats +were away in search of assistance--which they had found--which +they had found! This was something that she had never seen there +before. Lingard had suddenly stopped and looked at it moodily. +She pressed his arm to rouse him and asked, "What is this?" + +"This is a grave," said Lingard in a low voice, and still gazing +at the heap of sand. "I had him taken out of the ship last night. +Strange," he went on in a musing tone, "how much a grave big +enough for one man only can hold. His message was to forget +everything." + +"Never, never," murmured Mrs. Travers. "I wish I had been on +board the Emma. . . . You had a madman there," she cried out, +suddenly. They moved on again, Lingard looking at Mrs. Travers +who was leaning on his arm. + +"I wonder which of us two was mad," he said. + +"I wonder you can bear to look at me," she murmured. Then Lingard +spoke again. + +"I had to see you once more." + +"That abominable Jorgenson," she whispered to herself. + +"No, no, he gave me my chance--before he gave me up." + +Mrs. Travers disengaged her arm and Lingard stopped, too, facing +her in a long silence. + +"I could not refuse to meet you," said Mrs. Travers at last. "I +could not refuse you anything. You have all the right on your +side and I don't care what you do or say. But I wonder at my own +courage when I think of the confession I have to make." She +advanced, laid her hand on Lingard's shoulder and spoke +earnestly. "I shuddered at the thought of meeting you again. And +now you must listen to my confession." + +"Don't say a word," said Lingard in an untroubled voice and never +taking his eyes from her face. "I know already." + +"You can't," she cried. Her hand slipped off his shoulder. "Then +why don't you throw me into the sea?" she asked, passionately. +"Am I to live on hating myself?" + +"You mustn't!" he said with an accent of fear. "Haven't you +understood long ago that if you had given me that ring it would +have been just the same?" + +"Am I to believe this? No, no! You are too generous to a mere +sham. You are the most magnanimous of men but you are throwing it +away on me. Do you think it is remorse that I feel? No. If it is +anything it is despair. But you must have known that--and yet you +wanted to look at me again." + +"I told you I never had a chance before," said Lingard in an +unmoved voice. "It was only after I heard they gave you the ring +that I felt the hold you have got on me. How could I tell before? +What has hate or love to do with you and me? Hate. Love. What can +touch you? For me you stand above death itself; for I see now +that as long as I live you will never die." + +They confronted each other at the southern edge of the sands as +if afloat on the open sea. The central ridge heaped up by the +winds masked from them the very mastheads of the two ships and +the growing brightness of the light only augmented the sense of +their invincible solitude in the awful serenity of the world. +Mrs. Travers suddenly put her arm across her eyes and averted her +face. + +Then he added: + +"That's all." + +Mrs. Travers let fall her arm and began to retrace her steps, +unsupported and alone. Lingard followed her on the edge of the +sand uncovered by the ebbing tide. A belt of orange light +appeared in the cold sky above the black forest of the Shore of +Refuge and faded quickly to gold that melted soon into a blinding +and colourless glare. It was not till after she had passed +Jaffir's grave that Mrs. Travers stole a backward glance and +discovered that she was alone. Lingard had left her to herself. +She saw him sitting near the mound of sand, his back bowed, his +hands clasping his knees, as if he had obeyed the invincible call +of his great visions haunting the grave of the faithful +messenger. Shading her eyes with her hand Mrs. Travers watched +the immobility of that man of infinite illusions. He never moved, +he never raised his head. It was all over. He was done with her. +She waited a little longer and then went slowly on her way. + +Shaw, now acting second mate of the yacht, came off with another +hand in a little boat to take Mrs. Travers on board. He stared at +her like an offended owl. How the lady could suddenly appear at +sunrise waving her handkerchief from the sandbank he could not +understand. For, even if she had managed to row herself off +secretly in the dark, she could not have sent the empty boat back +to the yacht. It was to Shaw a sort of improper miracle. + +D'Alcacer hurried to the top of the side ladder and as they met +on deck Mrs. Travers astonished him by saying in a strangely +provoking tone: + +"You were right. I have come back." Then with a little laugh +which impressed d'Alcacer painfully she added with a nod +downward, "and Martin, too, was perfectly right. It was +absolutely unimportant." + +She walked on straight to the taffrail and d'Alcacer followed her +aft, alarmed at her white face, at her brusque movements, at the +nervous way in which she was fumbling at her throat. He waited +discreetly till she turned round and thrust out toward him her +open palm on which he saw a thick gold ring set with a large +green stone. + +"Look at this, Mr. d'Alcacer. This is the thing which I asked you +whether I should give up or conceal--the symbol of the last +hour--the call of the supreme minute. And he said it would have +made no difference! He is the most magnanimous of men and the +uttermost farthing has been paid. He has done with me. The most +magnanimous . . . but there is a grave on the sands by which I +left him sitting with no glance to spare for me. His last glance +on earth! I am left with this thing. Absolutely unimportant. A +dead talisman." With a nervous jerk she flung the ring overboard, +then with a hurried entreaty to d'Alcacer, "Stay here a moment. +Don't let anybody come near us," she burst into tears and turned +her back on him. + +Lingard returned on board his brig and in the early afternoon the +Lightning got under way, running past the schooner to give her a +lead through the maze of Shoals. Lingard was on deck but never +looked once at the following vessel. Directly both ships were in +clear water he went below saying to Carter: "You know what to +do." + +"Yes, sir," said Carter. + +Shortly after his Captain had disappeared from the deck Carter +laid the main topsail to the mast. The Lightning lost her way +while the schooner with all her light kites abroad passed close +under her stern holding on her course. Mrs. Travers stood aft +very rigid, gripping the rail with both hands. The brim of her +white hat was blown upward on one side and her yachting skirt +stirred in the breeze. By her side d'Alcacer waved his hand +courteously. Carter raised his cap to them. + +During the afternoon he paced the poop with measured steps, with +a pair of binoculars in his hand. At last he laid the glasses +down, glanced at the compass-card and walked to the cabin +skylight which was open. + +"Just lost her, sir," he said. All was still down there. He +raised his voice a little: + +"You told me to let you know directly I lost sight of the yacht." + +The sound of a stifled groan reached the attentive Carter and a +weary voice said, "All right, I am coming." + +When Lingard stepped out on the poop of the Lightning the open +water had turned purple already in the evening light, while to +the east the Shallows made a steely glitter all along the sombre +line of the shore. Lingard, with folded arms, looked over the +sea. Carter approached him and spoke quietly. + +"The tide has turned and the night is coming on. Hadn't we better +get away from these Shoals, sir?" + +Lingard did not stir. + +"Yes, the night is coming on. You may fill the main topsail, Mr. +Carter," he said and he relapsed into silence with his eyes fixed +in the southern board where the shadows were creeping stealthily +toward the setting sun. Presently Carter stood at his elbow +again. + +"The brig is beginning to forge ahead, sir," he said in a warning +tone. + +Lingard came out of his absorption with a deep tremor of his +powerful frame like the shudder of an uprooted tree. + +"How was the yacht heading when you lost sight of her?" he asked. + +"South as near as possible," answered Carter. "Will you give me a +course to steer for the night, sir?" + +Lingard's lips trembled before he spoke but his voice was calm. + +"Steer north," he said. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Rescue, by Joseph Conrad + |