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 requirements. 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 grey-haired, 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.