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.