She didn't change her attitude. The deep red glow lighted her up dimly,

her face, the white hand hanging by her side, her feet in their sandals.

The disturbing footsteps stopped close to her.

“Where have you been all this time?” she asked, without looking round.

“I don't know,” answered Lingard. He was speaking the exact truth.

He didn't know. Ever since he had released that woman from his arms

everything but the vaguest notions had departed from him. Events,

necessities, things--he had lost his grip on them all. And he didn't

care. They were futile and impotent; he had no patience with them. The

offended and astonished Belarab, d'Alcacer with his kindly touch and

friendly voice, the sleeping men, the men awake, the Settlement full of

unrestful life and the restless Shallows of the coast, were removed from

him into an immensity of pitying contempt. Perhaps they existed. Perhaps

all this waited for him. Well, let all this wait; let everything wait,

till to-morrow or to the end of time, which could now come at any moment

for all he cared--but certainly till to-morrow.

“I only know,” he went on with an emphasis that made Mrs. Travers raise

her head, “that wherever I go I shall carry you with me--against my

breast.”

Mrs. Travers' fine ear caught the mingled tones of suppressed exultation

and dawning fear, the ardour and the faltering of those words. She was

feeling still the physical truth at the root of them so strongly that

she couldn't help saying in a dreamy whisper:

“Did you mean to crush the life out of me?”

He answered in the same tone:

“I could not have done it. You are too strong. Was I rough? I didn't

mean to be. I have been often told I didn't know my own strength. You

did not seem able to get through that opening and so I caught hold

of you. You came away in my hands quite easily. Suddenly I thought to

myself, 'now I will make sure.'”

He paused as if his breath had failed him. Mrs. Travers dared not make

the slightest movement. Still in the pose of one in quest of hidden

truth she murmured, “Make sure?”

“Yes. And now I am sure. You are here--here! Before I couldn't tell.”

“Oh, you couldn't tell before,” she said.

“No.”

“So it was reality that you were seeking.”

He repeated as if speaking to himself: “And now I am sure.”

Her sandalled foot, all rosy in the glow, felt the warmth of the embers.

The tepid night had enveloped her body; and still under the impression

of his strength she gave herself up to a momentary feeling of quietude

that came about her heart as soft as the night air penetrated by the

feeble clearness of the stars. “This is a limpid soul,” she thought.

“You know I always believed in you,” he began again. “You know I did.

Well. I never believed in you so much as I do now, as you sit there,

just as you are, and with hardly enough light to make you out by.”

It occurred to her that she had never heard a voice she liked so

well--except one. But that had been a great actor's voice; whereas this

man was nothing in the world but his very own self. He persuaded, he

moved, he disturbed, he soothed by his inherent truth. He had wanted to

make sure and he had made sure apparently; and too weary to resist

the waywardness of her thoughts Mrs. Travers reflected with a sort of

amusement that apparently he had not been disappointed. She thought, “He

believes in me. What amazing words. Of all the people that might have

believed in me I had to find this one here. He believes in me more than

in himself.” A gust of sudden remorse tore her out from her quietness,

made her cry out to him:

“Captain Lingard, we forget how we have met, we forget what is going on.

We mustn't. I won't say that you placed your belief wrongly but I have

to confess something to you. I must tell you how I came here to-night.

Jorgenson . . .”

He interrupted her forcibly but without raising his voice.

“Jorgenson. Who's Jorgenson? You came to me because you couldn't help

yourself.”

This took her breath away. “But I must tell you. There is something in

my coming which is not clear to me.”

“You can tell me nothing that I don't know already,” he said in

a pleading tone. “Say nothing. Sit still. Time enough to-morrow.

To-morrow! The night is drawing to an end and I care for nothing in the

world but you. Let me be. Give me the rest that is in you.”

She had never heard such accents on his lips and she felt for him a

great and tender pity. Why not humour this mood in which he wanted to

preserve the moments that would never come to him again on this earth?

She hesitated in silence. She saw him stir in the darkness as if he

could not make up his mind to sit down on the bench. But suddenly he

scattered the embers with his foot and sank on the ground against her

feet, and she was not startled in the least to feel the weight of his

head on her knee. Mrs. Travers was not startled but she felt profoundly

moved. Why should she torment him with all those questions of freedom

and captivity, of violence and intrigue, of life and death? He was not

in a state to be told anything and it seemed to her that she did not

want to speak, that in the greatness of her compassion she simply could

not speak. All she could do for him was to rest her hand lightly on his

head and respond silently to the slight movement she felt, sigh or sob,

but a movement which suddenly immobilized her in an anxious emotion.

About the same time on the other side of the lagoon Jorgenson, raising

his eyes, noted the stars and said to himself that the night would not

last long now. He wished for daylight. He hoped that Lingard had already

done something. The blaze in Tengga's compound had been re-lighted.

Tom's power was unbounded, practically unbounded. And he was

invulnerable.

Jorgenson let his old eyes wander amongst the gleams and shadows of the

great sheet of water between him and that hostile shore and fancied he

could detect a floating shadow having the characteristic shape of a man

in a small canoe.

“O! Ya! Man!” he hailed. “What do you want?” Other eyes, too, had

detected that shadow. Low murmurs arose on the deck of the Emma. “If you

don't speak at once I shall fire,” shouted Jorgenson, fiercely.

“No, white man,” returned the floating shape in a solemn drawl. “I am

the bearer of friendly words. A chief's words. I come from Tengga.”

“There was a bullet that came on board not a long time ago--also from

Tengga,” said Jorgenson.

“That was an accident,” protested the voice from the lagoon. “What else

could it be? Is there war between you and Tengga? No, no, O white man!

All Tengga desires is a long talk. He has sent me to ask you to come

ashore.”

At these words Jorgenson's heart sank a little. This invitation meant

that Lingard had made no move. Was Tom asleep or altogether mad?

“The talk would be of peace,” declared impressively the shadow which had

drifted much closer to the hulk now.

“It isn't for me to talk with great chiefs,” Jorgenson returned,

cautiously.

“But Tengga is a friend,” argued the nocturnal messenger. “And by that

fire there are other friends--your friends, the Rajah Hassim and the

lady Immada, who send you their greetings and who expect their eyes to

rest on you before sunrise.”

“That's a lie,” remarked Jorgenson, perfunctorily, and fell into

thought, while the shadowy bearer of words preserved a scandalized

silence, though, of course, he had not expected to be believed for a

moment. But one could never tell what a white man would believe. He

had wanted to produce the impression that Hassim and Immada were the

honoured guests of Tengga. It occurred to him suddenly that perhaps

Jorgenson didn't know anything of the capture. And he persisted.

“My words are all true, Tuan. The Rajah of Wajo and his sister are with

my master. I left them sitting by the fire on Tengga's right hand. Will

you come ashore to be welcomed amongst friends?”

Jorgenson had been reflecting profoundly. His object was to gain as much

time as possible for Lingard's interference which indeed could not fail

to be effective. But he had not the slightest wish to entrust himself to

Tengga's friendliness. Not that he minded the risk; but he did not see

the use of taking it.

“No!” he said, “I can't go ashore. We white men have ways of our own

and I am chief of this hulk. And my chief is the Rajah Laut, a white man

like myself. All the words that matter are in him and if Tengga is such

a great chief let him ask the Rajah Laut for a talk. Yes, that's the

proper thing for Tengga to do if he is such a great chief as he says.”

“The Rajah Laut has made his choice. He dwells with Belarab, and with

the white people who are huddled together like trapped deer in Belarab's

stockade. Why shouldn't you meantime go over where everything is lighted

up and open and talk in friendship with Tengga's friends, whose hearts

have been made sick by many doubts; Rajah Hassim and the lady Immada and

Daman, the chief of the men of the sea, who do not know now whom they

can trust unless it be you, Tuan, the keeper of much wealth?”

The diplomatist in the small dugout paused for a moment to give special

weight to the final argument:

“Which you have no means to defend. We know how many armed men there are

with you.”

“They are great fighters,” Jorgenson observed, unconcernedly, spreading

his elbows on the rail and looking over at the floating black patch of

characteristic shape whence proceeded the voice of the wily envoy of

Tengga. “Each man of them is worth ten of such as you can find in the

Settlement.”

“Yes, by Allah. Even worth twenty of these common people. Indeed, you

have enough with you to make a great fight but not enough for victory.”

“God alone gives victory,” said suddenly the voice of Jaffir, who, very

still at Jorgenson's elbow, had been listening to the conversation.

“Very true,” was the answer in an extremely conventional tone. “Will you

come ashore, O white man; and be the leader of chiefs?”

“I have been that before,” said Jorgenson, with great dignity, “and now

all I want is peace. But I won't come ashore amongst people whose minds

are so much troubled, till Rajah Hassim and his sister return on board

this ship and tell me the tale of their new friendship with Tengga.”

His heart was sinking with every minute, the very air was growing

heavier with the sense of oncoming disaster, on that night that was

neither war nor peace and whose only voice was the voice of Tengga's

envoy, insinuating in tone though menacing in words.

“No, that cannot be,” said that voice. “But, Tuan, verily Tengga himself

is ready to come on board here to talk with you. He is very ready to

come and indeed, Tuan, he means to come on board here before very long.”

“Yes, with fifty war-canoes filled with the ferocious rabble of the

Shore of Refuge,” Jaffir was heard commenting, sarcastically, over the

rail; and a sinister muttered “It may be so,” ascended alongside from

the black water.

Jorgenson kept silent as if waiting for a supreme inspiration and

suddenly he spoke in his other-world voice: “Tell Tengga from me that as

long as he brings with him Rajah Hassim and the Rajah's sister, he and

his chief men will be welcome on deck here, no matter how many boats

come along with them. For that I do not care. You may go now.”

A profound silence succeeded. It was clear that the envoy was gone,

keeping in the shadow of the shore. Jorgenson turned to Jaffir.

“Death amongst friends is but a festival,” he quoted, mumbling in his

moustache.

“It is, by Allah,” assented Jaffir with sombre fervour.

VI

Thirty-six hours later Carter, alone with Lingard in the cabin of the

brig, could almost feel during a pause in his talk the oppressive, the

breathless peace of the Shallows awaiting another sunset.

“I never expected to see any of you alive,” Carter began in his easy

tone, but with much less carelessness in his bearing as though his days

of responsibility amongst the Shoals of the Shore of Refuge had matured

his view of the external world and of his own place therein.

“Of course not,” muttered Lingard.

The listlessness of that man whom he had always seen acting under

the stress of a secret passion seemed perfectly appalling to Carter's

youthful and deliberate energy. Ever since he had found himself

again face to face with Lingard he had tried to conceal the shocking

impression with a delicacy which owed nothing to training but was as

intuitive as a child's.

While justifying to Lingard his manner of dealing with the situation

on the Shore of Refuge, he could not for the life of him help asking

himself what was this new mystery. He was also young enough to long for

a word of commendation.

“Come, Captain,” he argued; “how would you have liked to come out and

find nothing but two half-burnt wrecks stuck on the sands--perhaps?”

He waited for a moment, then in sheer compassion turned away his eyes

from that fixed gaze, from that harassed face with sunk cheeks, from

that figure of indomitable strength robbed of its fire. He said to

himself: “He doesn't hear me,” and raised his voice without altering its

self-contained tone:

“I was below yesterday morning when we felt the shock, but the noise

came to us only as a deep rumble. I made one jump for the companion but

that precious Shaw was before me yelling, 'Earthquake! Earthquake!' and

I am hanged if he didn't miss his footing and land down on his head at

the bottom of the stairs. I had to stop to pick him up but I got on deck

in time to see a mighty black cloud that seemed almost solid pop up from

behind the forest like a balloon. It stayed there for quite a long time.

Some of our Calashes on deck swore to me that they had seen a red flash

above the tree-tops. But that's hard to believe. I guessed at once that

something had blown up on shore. My first thought was that I would never

see you any more and I made up my mind at once to find out all the truth

you have been keeping away from me. No, sir! Don't you make a mistake! I

wasn't going to give you up, dead or alive.”

He looked hard at Lingard while saying these words and saw the first

sign of animation pass over that ravaged face. He saw even its lips move

slightly; but there was no sound, and Carter looked away again.

“Perhaps you would have done better by telling me everything; but you

left me behind on my own to be your man here. I put my hand to the

work I could see before me. I am a sailor. There were two ships to look

after. And here they are both for you, fit to go or to stay, to fight or

to run, as you choose.” He watched with bated breath the effort Lingard

had to make to utter the two words of the desired commendation:

“Well done!”

“And I am your man still,” Carter added, impulsively, and hastened to

look away from Lingard, who had tried to smile at him and had failed.

Carter didn't know what to do next, remain in the cabin or leave that

unsupported strong man to himself. With a shyness completely foreign to

his character and which he could not understand himself, he suggested

in an engaging murmur and with an embarrassed assumption of his right to

give advice:

“Why not lie down for a bit, sir? I can attend to anything that may turn

up. You seem done up, sir.”

He was facing Lingard, who stood on the other side of the table in a

leaning forward attitude propped up on rigid arms and stared fixedly at

him--perhaps? Carter felt on the verge of despair. This couldn't last.

He was relieved to see Lingard shake his head slightly.

“No, Mr. Carter. I think I will go on deck,” said the Captain of the

famous brig Lightning, while his eyes roamed all over the cabin. Carter

stood aside at once, but it was some little time before Lingard made a

move.

The sun had sunk already, leaving that evening no trace of its glory on

a sky clear as crystal and on the waters without a ripple. All colour

seemed to have gone out of the world. The oncoming shadow rose as subtle

as a perfume from the black coast lying athwart the eastern semicircle;

and such was the silence within the horizon that one might have fancied

oneself come to the end of time. Black and toylike in the clear depths

and the final stillness of the evening the brig and the schooner lay

anchored in the middle of the main channel with their heads swung the

same way. Lingard, with his chin on his breast and his arms folded,

moved slowly here and there about the poop. Close and mute like his

shadow, Carter, at his elbow, followed his movements. He felt an anxious

solicitude. . . .

It was a sentiment perfectly new to him. He had never before felt this

sort of solicitude about himself or any other man. His personality was

being developed by new experience, and as he was very simple he received

the initiation with shyness and self-mistrust. He had noticed with

innocent alarm that Lingard had not looked either at the sky or over

the sea, neither at his own ship nor the schooner astern; not along the

decks, not aloft, not anywhere. He had looked at nothing! And somehow

Carter felt himself more lonely and without support than when he had

been left alone by that man in charge of two ships entangled amongst the

Shallows and environed by some sinister mystery. Since that man had come

back, instead of welcome relief Carter felt his responsibility rest on

his young shoulders with tenfold weight. His profound conviction was

that Lingard should be roused.

“Captain Lingard,” he burst out in desperation; “you can't say I have

worried you very much since this morning when I received you at the

side, but I must be told something. What is it going to be with us?

Fight or run?”

Lingard stopped short and now there was no doubt in Carter's mind that

the Captain was looking at him. There was no room for any doubt before

that stern and enquiring gaze. “Aha!” thought Carter. “This has

startled him”; and feeling that his shyness had departed he pursued his

advantage. “For the fact of the matter is, sir, that, whatever happens,

unless I am to be your man you will have no officer. I had better tell

you at once that I have bundled that respectable, crazy, fat Shaw out of

the ship. He was upsetting all hands. Yesterday I told him to go and get

his dunnage together because I was going to send him aboard the yacht.

He couldn't have made more uproar about it if I had proposed to chuck

him overboard. I warned him that if he didn't go quietly I would have

him tied up like a sheep ready for slaughter. However, he went down the

ladder on his own feet, shaking his fist at me and promising to have me

hanged for a pirate some day. He can do no harm on board the yacht. And

now, sir, it's for you to give orders and not for me--thank God!”

Lingard turned away, abruptly. Carter didn't budge. After a moment he

heard himself called from the other side of the deck and obeyed with

alacrity.

“What's that story of a man you picked up on the coast last evening?”

asked Lingard in his gentlest tone. “Didn't you tell me something about

it when I came on board?”

“I tried to,” said Carter, frankly. “But I soon gave it up. You didn't

seem to pay any attention to what I was saying. I thought you wanted to

be left alone for a bit. What can I know of your ways, yet, sir? Are you

aware, Captain Lingard, that since this morning I have been down five

times at the cabin door to look at you? There you sat. . . .”

He paused and Lingard said: “You have been five times down in the

cabin?”

“Yes. And the sixth time I made up my mind to make you take some notice

of me. I can't be left without orders. There are two ships to look

after, a lot of things to be done. . . .”

“There is nothing to be done,” Lingard interrupted with a mere murmur

but in a tone which made Carter keep silent for a while.

“Even to know that much would have been something to go by,” he ventured

at last. “I couldn't let you sit there with the sun getting pretty low

and a long night before us.”

“I feel stunned yet,” said Lingard, looking Carter straight in the face,

as if to watch the effect of that confession.

“Were you very near that explosion?” asked the young man with

sympathetic curiosity and seeking for some sign on Lingard's person.

But there was nothing. Not a single hair of the Captain's head seemed to

have been singed.

“Near,” muttered Lingard. “It might have been my head.” He pressed it

with both hands, then let them fall. “What about that man?” he asked,

brusquely. “Where did he come from? . . . I suppose he is dead now,” he

added in an envious tone.

“No, sir. He must have as many lives as a cat,” answered Carter. “I will

tell you how it was. As I said before I wasn't going to give you up,

dead or alive, so yesterday when the sun went down a little in the

afternoon I had two of our boats manned and pulled in shore, taking

soundings to find a passage if there was one. I meant to go back and

look for you with the brig or without the brig--but that doesn't

matter now. There were three or four floating logs in sight. One of the

Calashes in my boat made out something red on one of them. I thought it

was worth while to go and see what it was. It was that man's sarong. It

had got entangled among the branches and prevented him rolling off into

the water. I was never so glad, I assure you, as when we found out

that he was still breathing. If we could only nurse him back to life, I

thought, he could perhaps tell me a lot of things. The log on which he

hung had come out of the mouth of the creek and he couldn't have been

more than half a day on it by my calculation. I had him taken down the

main hatchway and put into a hammock in the 'tween-decks. He only just

breathed then, but some time during the night he came to himself and

got out of the hammock to lie down on a mat. I suppose he was more

comfortable that way. He recovered his speech only this morning and I

went down at once and told you of it, but you took no notice. I told you

also who he was but I don't know whether you heard me or not.”

“I don't remember,” said Lingard under his breath.

“They are wonderful, those Malays. This morning he was only half alive,

if that much, and now I understand he has been talking to Wasub for an

hour. Will you go down to see him, sir, or shall I send a couple of men

to carry him on deck?”

Lingard looked bewildered for a moment.

“Who on earth is he?” he asked.

“Why, it's that fellow whom you sent out, that night I met you, to catch

our first gig. What do they call him? Jaffir, I think. Hasn't he been

with you ashore, sir? Didn't he find you with the letter I gave him for

you? A most determined looking chap. I knew him again the moment we got

him off the log.”

Lingard seized hold of the royal backstay within reach of his hand.

Jaffir! Jaffir! Faithful above all others; the messenger of supreme

moments; the reckless and devoted servant! Lingard felt a crushing sense

of despair. “No, I can't face this,” he whispered to himself, looking

at the coast black as ink now before his eyes in the world's shadow that

was slowly encompassing the grey clearness of the Shallow Waters. “Send

Wasub to me. I am going down into the cabin.”

He crossed over to the companion, then checking himself suddenly: “Was

there a boat from the yacht during the day?” he asked as if struck by

a sudden thought.--“No, sir,” answered Carter. “We had no communication

with the yacht to-day.”--“Send Wasub to me,” repeated Lingard in a stern

voice as he went down the stairs.

The old serang coming in noiselessly saw his Captain as he had seen him

many times before, sitting under the gilt thunderbolts, apparently as

strong in his body, in his wealth, and in his knowledge of secret words

that have a power over men and elements, as ever. The old Malay squatted

down within a couple of feet from Lingard, leaned his back against

the satinwood panel of the bulkhead, then raising his old eyes with a

watchful and benevolent expression to the white man's face, clasped his

hands between his knees.

“Wasub, you have learned now everything. Is there no one left alive but

Jaffir? Are they all dead?”

“May you live!” answered Wasub; and Lingard whispered an appalled “All

dead!” to which Wasub nodded slightly twice. His cracked voice had a

lamenting intonation. “It is all true! It is all true! You are left

alone, Tuan; you are left alone!”

“It was their destiny,” said Lingard at last, with forced calmness. “But

has Jaffir told you of the manner of this calamity? How is it that he

alone came out alive from it to be found by you?”

“He was told by his lord to depart and he obeyed,” began Wasub, fixing

his eyes on the deck and speaking just loud enough to be heard by

Lingard, who, bending forward in his seat, shrank inwardly from every

word and yet would not have missed a single one of them for anything.

For the catastrophe had fallen on his head like a bolt from the blue in

the early morning hours of the day before. At the first break of dawn he

had been sent for to resume, his talk with Belarab. He had felt

suddenly Mrs. Travers remove her hand from his head. Her voice speaking

intimately into his ear: “Get up. There are some people coming,” had

recalled him to himself. He had got up from the ground. The light was

dim, the air full of mist; and it was only gradually that he began to

make out forms above his head and about his feet: trees, houses, men

sleeping on the ground. He didn't recognize them. It was but a cruel

change of dream. Who could tell what was real in this world? He looked

about him, dazedly; he was still drunk with the deep draught of oblivion

he had conquered for himself. Yes--but it was she who had let him snatch

the cup. He looked down at the woman on the bench. She moved not. She

had remained like that, still for hours, giving him a waking dream

of rest without end, in an infinity of happiness without sound and

movement, without thought, without joy; but with an infinite ease of

content, like a world-embracing reverie breathing the air of sadness and

scented with love. For hours she had not moved.

“You are the most generous of women,” he said. He bent over her. Her

eyes were wide open. Her lips felt cold. It did not shock him. After he

stood up he remained near her. Heat is a consuming thing, but she with

her cold lips seemed to him indestructible--and, perhaps, immortal!

Again he stooped, but this time it was only to kiss the fringe of her

head scarf. Then he turned away to meet the three men, who, coming round

the corner of the hut containing the prisoners, were approaching him

with measured steps. They desired his presence in the Council room.

Belarab was awake.

They also expressed their satisfaction at finding the white man awake,

because Belarab wanted to impart to him information of the greatest

importance. It seemed to Lingard that he had been awake ever since he

could remember. It was as to being alive that he felt not so sure.

He had no doubt of his existence; but was this life--this profound

indifference, this strange contempt for what his eyes could see, this

distaste for words, this unbelief in the importance of things and men?

He tried to regain possession of himself, his old self which had things

to do, words to speak as well as to hear. But it was too difficult. He

was seduced away by the tense feeling of existence far superior to

the mere consciousness of life, and which in its immensity of

contradictions, delight, dread, exultation and despair could not be

faced and yet was not to be evaded. There was no peace in it. But who

wanted peace? Surrender was better, the dreadful ease of slack limbs in

the sweep of an enormous tide and in a divine emptiness of mind. If this

was existence then he knew that he existed. And he knew that the

woman existed, too, in the sweep of the tide, without speech, without

movement, without heat! Indestructible--and, perhaps, immortal!

VII

With the sublime indifference of a man who has had a glimpse through the

open doors of Paradise and is no longer careful of mere life, Lingard

had followed Belarab's anxious messengers. The stockade was waking up

in a subdued resonance of voices. Men were getting up from the ground,

fires were being rekindled. Draped figures flitted in the mist amongst

the buildings; and through the mat wall of a bamboo house Lingard heard

the feeble wailing of a child. A day of mere life was beginning; but in

the Chief's great Council room several wax candles and a couple of cheap

European lamps kept the dawn at bay, while the morning mist which could

not be kept out made a faint reddish halo round every flame.

Belarab was not only awake, but he even looked like a man who had not

slept for a long time. The creator of the Shore of Refuge, the weary

Ruler of the Settlement, with his scorn of the unrest and folly of men,

was angry with his white friend who was always bringing his desires and

his troubles to his very door. Belarab did not want any one to die but

neither did he want any one in particular to live. What he was concerned

about was to preserve the mystery and the power of his melancholy

hesitations. These delicate things were menaced by Lingard's brusque

movements, by that passionate white man who believed in more than

one God and always seemed to doubt the power of Destiny. Belarab was

profoundly annoyed. He was also genuinely concerned, for he liked

Lingard. He liked him not only for his strength, which protected his

clear-minded scepticism from those dangers that beset all rulers, but he

liked him also for himself. That man of infinite hesitations, born from

a sort of mystic contempt for Allah's creation, yet believed absolutely

both in Lingard's power and in his boldness. Absolutely. And yet, in the

marvellous consistency of his temperament, now that the moment had come,

he dreaded to put both power and fortitude to the test.

Lingard could not know that some little time before the first break of

dawn one of Belarab's spies in the Settlement had found his way inside

the stockade at a spot remote from the lagoon, and that a very few

moments after Lingard had left the Chief in consequence of Jorgenson's

rockets, Belarab was listening to an amazing tale of Hassim and Immada's

capture and of Tengga's determination, very much strengthened by

that fact, to obtain possession of the Emma, either by force or by

negotiation, or by some crafty subterfuge in which the Rajah and

his sister could be made to play their part. In his mistrust of the

universe, which seemed almost to extend to the will of God himself,

Belarab was very much alarmed, for the material power of Daman's

piratical crowd was at Tengga's command; and who could tell whether this

Wajo Rajah would remain loyal in the circumstances? It was also very

characteristic of him whom the original settlers of the Shore of Refuge

called the Father of Safety, that he did not say anything of this to

Lingard, for he was afraid of rousing Lingard's fierce energy which

would even carry away himself and all his people and put the peace of so

many years to the sudden hazard of a battle.

Therefore Belarab set himself to persuade Lingard on general

considerations to deliver the white men, who really belonged to Daman,

to that supreme Chief of the Illanuns and by this simple proceeding

detach him completely from Tengga. Why should he, Belarab, go to war

against half the Settlement on their account? It was not necessary, it

was not reasonable. It would be even in a manner a sin to begin a strife

in a community of True Believers. Whereas with an offer like that in his

hand he could send an embassy to Tengga who would see there at once the

downfall of his purposes and the end of his hopes. At once! That moment!

. . . Afterward the question of a ransom could be arranged with Daman in

which he, Belarab, would mediate in the fullness of his recovered power,

without a rival and in the sincerity of his heart. And then, if need be,

he could put forth all his power against the chief of the sea-vagabonds

who would, as a matter of fact, be negotiating under the shadow of the

sword.

Belarab talked, low-voiced and dignified, with now and then a subtle

intonation, a persuasive inflexion or a half-melancholy smile in the

course of the argument. What encouraged him most was the changed aspect

of his white friend. The fierce power of his personality seemed to have

turned into a dream. Lingard listened, growing gradually inscrutable in

his continued silence, but remaining gentle in a sort of rapt patience

as if lapped in the wings of the Angel of Peace himself. Emboldened by

that transformation, Belarab's counsellors seated on the mats murmured

loudly their assent to the views of the Chief. Through the thickening

white mist of tropical lands, the light of the tropical day filtered

into the hall. One of the wise men got up from the floor and with

prudent fingers began extinguishing the waxlights one by one. He

hesitated to touch the lamps, the flames of which looked yellow and

cold. A puff of the morning breeze entered the great room, faint and

chill. Lingard, facing Belarab in a wooden armchair, with slack

limbs and in the divine emptiness of a mind enchanted by a glimpse of

Paradise, shuddered profoundly.

A strong voice shouted in the doorway without any ceremony and with a

sort of jeering accent:

“Tengga's boats are out in the mist.”

Lingard half rose from his seat, Belarab himself could not repress a

start. Lingard's attitude was a listening one, but after a moment

of hesitation he ran out of the hall. The inside of the stockade was

beginning to buzz like a disturbed hive.

Outside Belarab's house Lingard slowed his pace. The mist still hung. A

great sustained murmur pervaded it and the blurred forms of men were all

moving outward from the centre toward the palisades. Somewhere amongst

the buildings a gong clanged. D'Alcacer's raised voice was heard:

“What is happening?”

Lingard was passing then close to the prisoners' house. There was a

group of armed men below the verandah and above their heads he saw Mrs.

Travers by the side of d'Alcacer. The fire by which Lingard had spent

the night was extinguished, its embers scattered, and the bench itself

lay overturned. Mrs. Travers must have run up on the verandah at the

first alarm. She and d'Alcacer up there seemed to dominate the tumult

which was now subsiding. Lingard noticed the scarf across Mrs. Travers'

face. D'Alcacer was bareheaded. He shouted again:

“What's the matter?”

“I am going to see,” shouted Lingard back.

He resisted the impulse to join those two, dominate the tumult, let it

roll away from under his feet--the mere life of men, vain like a dream

and interfering with the tremendous sense of his own existence.

He resisted it, he could hardly have told why. Even the sense of

self-preservation had abandoned him. There was a throng of people

pressing close about him yet careful not to get in his way. Surprise,

concern, doubt were depicted on all those faces; but there were some who

observed that the great white man making his way to the lagoon side of

the stockade wore a fixed smile. He asked at large:

“Can one see any distance over the water?”

One of Belarab's headmen who was nearest to him answered:

“The mist has thickened. If you see anything, Tuan, it will be but a

shadow of things.”

The four sides of the stockade had been manned by that time. Lingard,

ascending the banquette, looked out and saw the lagoon shrouded in

white, without as much as a shadow on it, and so still that not even the

sound of water lapping the shore reached his ears. He found himself in

profound accord with this blind and soundless peace.

“Has anything at all been seen?” he asked incredulously.

Four men were produced at once who had seen a dark mass of boats moving

in the light of the dawn. Others were sent for. He hardly listened to

them. His thought escaped him and he stood motionless, looking out into

the unstirring mist pervaded by the perfect silence. Presently Belarab

joined him, escorted by three grave, swarthy men, himself dark-faced,

stroking his short grey beard with impenetrable composure. He said to

Lingard, “Your white man doesn't fight,” to which Lingard answered,

“There is nothing to fight against. What your people have seen, Belarab,

were indeed but shadows on the water.” Belarab murmured, “You ought to

have allowed me to make friends with Daman last night.”

A faint uneasiness was stealing into Lingard's breast.

A moment later d'Alcacer came up, inconspicuously watched over by two

men with lances, and to his anxious inquiry Lingard said: “I don't think

there is anything going on. Listen how still everything is. The only way

of bringing the matter to a test would be to persuade Belarab to let

his men march out and make an attack on Tengga's stronghold this moment.

Then we would learn something. But I couldn't persuade Belarab to march

out into this fog. Indeed, an expedition like this might end badly. I

myself don't believe that all Tengga's people are on the lagoon. . . .

Where is Mrs. Travers?”

The question made d'Alcacer start by its abruptness which revealed the

woman's possession of that man's mind. “She is with Don Martin, who is

better but feels very weak. If we are to be given up, he will have to

be carried out to his fate. I can depict to myself the scene. Don Martin

carried shoulder high surrounded by those barbarians with spears, and

Mrs. Travers with myself walking on each side of the stretcher. Mrs.

Travers has declared to me her intention to go out with us.”

“Oh, she has declared her intention,” murmured Lingard, absent-mindedly.

D'Alcacer felt himself completely abandoned by that man. And within

two paces of him he noticed the group of Belarab and his three swarthy

attendants in their white robes, preserving an air of serene detachment.

For the first time since the stranding on the coast d'Alcacer's heart

sank within him. “But perhaps,” he went on, “this Moor may not in the

end insist on giving us up to a cruel death, Captain Lingard.”

“He wanted to give you up in the middle of the night, a few hours ago,”

said Lingard, without even looking at d'Alcacer who raised his hands

a little and let them fall. Lingard sat down on the breech of a heavy

piece mounted on a naval carriage so as to command the lagoon. He folded

his arms on his breast. D'Alcacer asked, gently:

“We have been reprieved then?”

“No,” said Lingard. “It's I who was reprieved.”

A long silence followed. Along the whole line of the manned stockade the

whisperings had ceased. The vibrations of the gong had died out, too.

Only the watchers perched in the highest boughs of the big tree made a

slight rustle amongst the leaves.

“What are you thinking of, Captain Lingard?” d'Alcacer asked in a low

voice. Lingard did not change his position.

“I am trying to keep it off,” he said in the same tone.

“What? Trying to keep thought off?”

“Yes.”

“Is this the time for such experiments?” asked d'Alcacer.

“Why not? It's my reprieve. Don't grudge it to me, Mr. d'Alcacer.”

“Upon my word I don't. But isn't it dangerous?”

“You will have to take your chance.”

D'Alcacer had a moment of internal struggle. He asked himself whether he

should tell Lingard that Mrs. Travers had come to the stockade with some

sort of message from Jorgenson. He had it on the tip of his tongue

to advise Lingard to go and see Mrs. Travers and ask her point blank

whether she had anything to tell him; but before he could make up

his mind the voices of invisible men high up in the tree were heard

reporting the thinning of the fog. This caused a stir to run along the

four sides of the stockade.

Lingard felt the draught of air in his face, the motionless mist began

to drive over the palisades and, suddenly, the lagoon came into view

with a great blinding glitter of its wrinkled surface and the faint

sound of its wash rising all along the shore. A multitude of hands went

up to shade the eager eyes, and exclamations of wonder burst out from

many men at the sight of a crowd of canoes of various sizes and kinds

lying close together with the effect as of an enormous raft, a little

way off the side of the Emma. The excited voices rose higher and higher.

There was no doubt about Tengga's being on the lagoon. But what was

Jorgenson about? The Emma lay as if abandoned by her keeper and her

crew, while the mob of mixed boats seemed to be meditating an attack.

For all his determination to keep thought off to the very last possible

moment, Lingard could not defend himself from a sense of wonder and

fear. What was Jorgenson about? For a moment Lingard expected the side

of the Emma to wreath itself in puffs of smoke, but an age seemed to

elapse without the sound of a shot reaching his ears.

The boats were afraid to close. They were hanging off, irresolute; but

why did Jorgenson not put an end to their hesitation by a volley or

two of musketry if only over their heads? Through the anguish of his

perplexity Lingard found himself returning to life, to mere life with

its sense of pain and mortality, like a man awakened from a dream by a

stab in the breast. What did this silence of the Emma mean? Could she

have been already carried in the fog? But that was unthinkable. Some

sounds of resistance must have been heard. No, the boats hung off

because they knew with what desperate defence they would meet; and

perhaps Jorgenson knew very well what he was doing by holding his fire

to the very last moment and letting the craven hearts grow cold with

the fear of a murderous discharge that would have to be faced. What was

certain was that this was the time for Belarab to open the great gate

and let his men go out, display his power, sweep through the further end

of the Settlement, destroy Tengga's defences, do away once for all with

the absurd rivalry of that intriguing amateur boat-builder. Lingard

turned eagerly toward Belarab but saw the Chief busy looking across the

lagoon through a long glass resting on the shoulder of a stooping slave.

He was motionless like a carving. Suddenly he let go the long glass

which some ready hands caught as it fell and said to Lingard:

“No fight.”

“How do you know?” muttered Lingard, astounded.

“There are three empty sampans alongside the ladder,” said Belarab in a

just audible voice. “There is bad talk there.”

“Talk? I don't understand,” said Lingard, slowly.

But Belarab had turned toward his three attendants in white robes,

with shaven polls under skull-caps of plaited grass, with prayer beads

hanging from their wrists, and an air of superior calm on their dark

faces: companions of his desperate days, men of blood once and now

imperturbable in their piety and wisdom of trusted counsellors.

“This white man is being betrayed,” he murmured to them with the

greatest composure.

D'Alcacer, uncomprehending, watched the scene: the Man of Fate puzzled

and fierce like a disturbed lion, the white-robed Moors, the multitude

of half-naked barbarians, squatting by the guns, standing by the

loopholes in the immobility of an arranged display. He saw Mrs. Travers

on the verandah of the prisoners' house, an anxious figure with a white

scarf over her head. Mr. Travers was no doubt too weak after his fit of

fever to come outside. If it hadn't been for that, all the whites would

have been in sight of each other at the very moment of the catastrophe

which was to give them back to the claims of their life, at the cost

of other lives sent violently out of the world. D'Alcacer heard Lingard

asking loudly for the long glass and saw Belarab make a sign with his

hand, when he felt the earth receive a violent blow from underneath.

While he staggered to it the heavens split over his head with a crash in

the lick of a red tongue of flame; and a sudden dreadful gloom fell all

round the stunned d'Alcacer, who beheld with terror the morning sun,

robbed of its rays, glow dull and brown through the sombre murk which

had taken possession of the universe. The Emma had blown up; and when

the rain of shattered timbers and mangled corpses falling into the

lagoon had ceased, the cloud of smoke hanging motionless under the livid

sun cast its shadow afar on the Shore of Refuge where all strife had

come to an end.

A great wail of terror ascended from the Settlement and was succeeded

by a profound silence. People could be seen bolting in unreasoning panic

away from the houses and into the fields. On the lagoon the raft of

boats had broken up. Some of them were sinking, others paddling away in

all directions. What was left above water of the Emma had burst into a

clear flame under the shadow of the cloud, the great smoky cloud that

hung solid and unstirring above the tops of the forest, visible for

miles up and down the coast and over the Shallows.

The first person to recover inside the stockade was Belarab himself.

Mechanically he murmured the exclamation of wonder, “God is great,” and

looked at Lingard. But Lingard was not looking at him. The shock of the

explosion had robbed him of speech and movement. He stared at the Emma

blazing in a distant and insignificant flame under the sinister shadow

of the cloud created by Jorgenson's mistrust and contempt for the

life of men. Belarab turned away. His opinion had changed. He regarded

Lingard no longer as a betrayed man but the effect was the same. He was

no longer a man of any importance. What Belarab really wanted now was

to see all the white people clear out of the lagoon as soon as possible.

Presently he ordered the gate to be thrown open and his armed men poured

out to take possession of the Settlement. Later Tengga's houses were

set on fire and Belarab, mounting a fiery pony, issued forth to make a

triumphal progress surrounded by a great crowd of headmen and guards.

That night the white people left the stockade in a cortege of torch

bearers. Mr. Travers had to be carried down to the beach, where two of

Belarab's war-boats awaited their distinguished passengers. Mrs. Travers

passed through the gate on d'Alcacer's arm. Her face was half veiled.

She moved through the throng of spectators displayed in the torchlight

looking straight before her. Belarab, standing in front of a group of

headmen, pretended not to see the white people as they went by. With

Lingard he shook hands, murmuring the usual formulas of friendship; and

when he heard the great white man say, “You shall never see me again,”

he felt immensely relieved. Belarab did not want to see that white man

again, but as he responded to the pressure of Lingard's hand he had a

grave smile.

“God alone knows the future,” he said.

Lingard walked to the beach by himself, feeling a stranger to all men

and abandoned by the All-Knowing God. By that time the first boat with

Mr. and Mrs. Travers had already got away out of the blood-red light

thrown by the torches upon the water. D'Alcacer and Lingard followed

in the second. Presently the dark shade of the creek, walled in by the

impenetrable forest, closed round them and the splash of the paddles

echoed in the still, damp air.

“How do you think this awful accident happened?” asked d'Alcacer, who

had been sitting silent by Lingard's side.

“What is an accident?” said Lingard with a great effort. “Where did you

hear of such a thing? Accident! Don't disturb me, Mr. d'Alcacer. I have

just come back to life and it has closed on me colder and darker than

the grave itself. Let me get used . . . I can't bear the sound of a

human voice yet.”

VIII

And now, stoical in the cold and darkness of his regained life, Lingard

had to listen to the voice of Wasub telling him Jaffir's story. The

old serang's face expressed a profound dejection and there was infinite

sadness in the flowing murmur of his words.

“Yes, by Allah! They were all there: that tyrannical Tengga, noisy

like a fool; the Rajah Hassim, a ruler without a country; Daman, the

wandering chief, and the three Pangerans of the sea-robbers. They came

on board boldly, for Tuan Jorgenson had given them permission, and their

talk was that you, Tuan, were a willing captive in Belarab's stockade.

They said they had waited all night for a message of peace from you or

from Belarab. But there was nothing, and with the first sign of day they

put out on the lagoon to make friends with Tuan Jorgenson; for, they

said, you, Tuan, were as if you had not been, possessing no more power

than a dead man, the mere slave of these strange white people, and

Belarab's prisoner. Thus Tengga talked. God had taken from him all

wisdom and all fear. And then he must have thought he was safe while

Rajah Hassim and the lady Immada were on board. I tell you they sat

there in the midst of your enemies, captive! The lady Immada, with her

face covered, mourned to herself. The Rajah Hassim made a sign to Jaffir

and Jaffir came to stand by his side and talked to his lord. The main

hatch was open and many of the Illanuns crowded there to look down at

the goods that were inside the ship. They had never seen so much loot in

their lives. Jaffir and his lord could hear plainly Tuan Jorgenson and

Tengga talking together. Tengga discoursed loudly and his words were the

words of a doomed man, for he was asking Tuan Jorgenson to give up the

arms and everything that was on board the Emma to himself and to Daman.

And then, he said, 'We shall fight Belarab and make friends with these

strange white people by behaving generously to them and letting them

sail away unharmed to their own country. We don't want them here. You,

Tuan Jorgenson, are the only white man I care for.' They heard Tuan

Jorgenson say to Tengga: 'Now you have told me everything there is

in your mind you had better go ashore with your friends and return

to-morrow.' And Tengga asked: 'Why! would you fight me to-morrow rather

than live many days in peace with me?' and he laughed and slapped his

thigh. And Tuan Jorgenson answered:

“'No, I won't fight you. But even a spider will give the fly time to say

its prayers.'

“Tuan Jorgenson's voice sounded very strange and louder than ever

anybody had heard it before. O Rajah Laut, Jaffir and the white man had

been waiting, too, all night for some sign from you; a shot fired or a

signal-fire, lighted to strengthen their hearts. There had been nothing.

Rajah Hassim, whispering, ordered Jaffir to take the first opportunity

to leap overboard and take to you his message of friendship and

good-bye. Did the Rajah and Jaffir know what was coming? Who can tell?

But what else could they see than calamity for all Wajo men, whatever

Tuan Jorgenson had made up his mind to do? Jaffir prepared to obey his

lord, and yet with so many enemies' boats in the water he did not think

he would ever reach the shore; and as to yourself he was not at all sure

that you were still alive. But he said nothing of this to his Rajah.

Nobody was looking their way. Jaffir pressed his lord's hand to his

breast and waited his opportunity. The fog began to blow away and

presently everything was disclosed to the sight. Jorgenson was on his

feet, he was holding a lighted cigar between his fingers. Tengga was

sitting in front of him on one of the chairs the white people had used.

His followers were pressing round him, with Daman and Sentot, who were

muttering incantations; and even the Pangerans had moved closer to the

hatchway. Jaffir's opportunity had come but he lingered by the side

of his Rajah. In the clear air the sun shone with great force. Tuan

Jorgenson looked once more toward Belarab's stockade, O Rajah Laut! But

there was nothing there, not even a flag displayed that had not been

there before. Jaffir looked that way, too, and as he turned his head he

saw Tuan Jorgenson, in the midst of twenty spear-blades that could in an

instant have been driven into his breast, put the cigar in his mouth and

jump down the hatchway. At that moment Rajah Hassim gave Jaffir a push

toward the side and Jaffir leaped overboard.

“He was still in the water when all the world was darkened round him as

if the life of the sun had been blown out of it in a crash. A great wave

came along and washed him on shore, while pieces of wood, iron, and the

limbs of torn men were splashing round him in the water. He managed to

crawl out of the mud. Something had hit him while he was swimming and he

thought he would die. But life stirred in him. He had a message for you.

For a long time he went on crawling under the big trees on his hands

and knees, for there is no rest for a messenger till the message is

delivered. At last he found himself on the left bank of the creek.

And still he felt life stir in him. So he started to swim across, for if

you were in this world you were on the other side. While he swam he felt

his strength abandoning him. He managed to scramble on to a drifting log

and lay on it like one who is dead, till we pulled him into one of our

boats.”

Wasub ceased. It seemed to Lingard that it was impossible for mortal

man to suffer more than he suffered in the succeeding moment of silence

crowded by the mute images as of universal destruction. He felt

himself gone to pieces as though the violent expression of Jorgenson's

intolerable mistrust of the life of men had shattered his soul, leaving

his body robbed of all power of resistance and of all fortitude, a prey

forever to infinite remorse and endless regrets.

“Leave me, Wasub,” he said. “They are all dead--but I would sleep.”

Wasub raised his dumb old eyes to the white man's face.

“Tuan, it is necessary that you should hear Jaffir,” he said, patiently.

“Is he going to die?” asked Lingard in a low, cautious tone as though he

were afraid of the sound of his own voice.

“Who can tell?” Wasub's voice sounded more patient than ever. “There is

no wound on his body but, O Tuan, he does not wish to live.”

“Abandoned by his God,” muttered Lingard to himself.

Wasub waited a little before he went on, “And, Tuan, he has a message

for you.”

“Of course. Well, I don't want to hear it.”

“It is from those who will never speak to you again,” Wasub persevered,

sadly. “It is a great trust. A Rajah's own words. It is difficult for

Jaffir to die. He keeps on muttering about a ring that was for you, and

that he let pass out of his care. It was a great talisman!”

“Yes. But it did not work this time. And if I go and tell Jaffir why he

will be able to tell his Rajah, O Wasub, since you say that he is going

to die. . . . I wonder where they will meet,” he muttered to himself.

Once more Wasub raised his eyes to Lingard's face. “Paradise is the lot

of all True Believers,” he whispered, firm in his simple faith.

The man who had been undone by a glimpse of Paradise exchanged a

profound look with the old Malay. Then he got up. On his passage to the

main hatchway the commander of the brig met no one on the decks, as if

all mankind had given him up except the old man who preceded him and

that other man dying in the deepening twilight, who was awaiting his

coming. Below, in the light of the hatchway, he saw a young Calash with

a broad yellow face and his wiry hair sticking up in stiff wisps through

the folds of his head-kerchief, holding an earthenware water-jar to the

lips of Jaffir extended on his back on a pile of mats.

A languid roll of the already glazed eyeballs, a mere stir of black

and white in the gathering dusk showed that the faithful messenger of

princes was aware of the presence of the man who had been so long known

to him and his people as the King of the Sea. Lingard knelt down close

to Jaffir's head, which rolled a little from side to side and then

became still, staring at a beam of the upper deck. Lingard bent his ear

to the dark lips. “Deliver your message” he said in a gentle tone.

“The Rajah wished to hold your hand once more,” whispered Jaffir so

faintly that Lingard had to guess the words rather than hear them. “I

was to tell you,” he went on--and stopped suddenly.

“What were you to tell me?”

“To forget everything,” said Jaffir with a loud effort as if beginning a

long speech. After that he said nothing more till Lingard murmured, “And

the lady Immada?”

Jaffir collected all his strength. “She hoped no more,” he uttered,

distinctly. “The order came to her while she mourned, veiled, apart. I

didn't even see her face.”

Lingard swayed over the dying man so heavily that Wasub, standing near

by, hastened to catch him by the shoulder. Jaffir seemed unaware of

anything, and went on staring at the beam.

“Can you hear me, O Jaffir?” asked Lingard.

“I hear.”

“I never had the ring. Who could bring it to me?”

“We gave it to the white woman--may Jehannum be her lot!”

“No! It shall be my lot,” said Lingard with despairing force, while

Wasub raised both his hands in dismay. “For, listen, Jaffir, if she had

given the ring to me it would have been to one that was dumb, deaf, and

robbed of all courage.”

It was impossible to say whether Jaffir had heard. He made no sound,

there was no change in his awful stare, but his prone body moved under

the cotton sheet as if to get further away from the white man. Lingard

got up slowly and making a sign to Wasub to remain where he was, went up

on deck without giving another glance to the dying man. Again it seemed

to him that he was pacing the quarter-deck of a deserted ship. The

mulatto steward, watching through the crack of the pantry door, saw the

Captain stagger into the cuddy and fling-to the door behind him with

a crash. For more than an hour nobody approached that closed door till

Carter coming down the companion stairs spoke without attempting to open

it.

“Are you there, sir?” The answer, “You may come in,” comforted the young

man by its strong resonance. He went in.

“Well?”

“Jaffir is dead. This moment. I thought you would want to know.”

Lingard looked persistently at Carter, thinking that now Jaffir was

dead there was no one left on the empty earth to speak to him a word of

reproach; no one to know the greatness of his intentions, the bond of

fidelity between him and Hassim and Immada, the depth of his affection

for those people, the earnestness of his visions, and the unbounded

trust that was his reward. By the mad scorn of Jorgenson flaming up

against the life of men, all this was as if it had never been. It had

become a secret locked up in his own breast forever.

“Tell Wasub to open one of the long-cloth bales in the hold, Mr. Carter,

and give the crew a cotton sheet to bury him decently according to their

faith. Let it be done to-night. They must have the boats, too. I suppose

they will want to take him on the sandbank.”

“Yes, sir,” said Carter.

“Let them have what they want, spades, torches. . . . Wasub will chant

the right words. Paradise is the lot of all True Believers. Do you

understand me, Mr. Carter? Paradise! I wonder what it will be for him!

Unless he gets messages to carry through the jungle, avoiding ambushes,

swimming in storms and knowing no rest, he won't like it.”

Carter listened with an unmoved face. It seemed to him that the Captain

had forgotten his presence.

“And all the time he will be sleeping on that sandbank,” Lingard began

again, sitting in his old place under the gilt thunderbolts suspended

over his head with his elbows on the table and his hands to his temples.

“If they want a board to set up at the grave let them have a piece of an

oak plank. It will stay there--till the next monsoon. Perhaps.”

Carter felt uncomfortable before that tense stare which just missed

him and in that confined cabin seemed awful in its piercing and far-off

expression. But as he had not been dismissed he did not like to go away.

“Everything will be done as you wish it, sir,” he said. “I suppose the

yacht will be leaving the first thing to-morrow morning, sir.”

“If she doesn't we must give her a solid shot or two to liven her

up--eh, Mr. Carter?”

Carter did not know whether to smile or to look horrified. In the end he

did both, but as to saying anything he found it impossible. But Lingard

did not expect an answer.

“I believe you are going to stay with me, Mr. Carter?”

“I told you, sir, I am your man if you want me.”

“The trouble is, Mr. Carter, that I am no longer the man to whom you

spoke that night in Carimata.”

“Neither am I, sir, in a manner of speaking.”

Lingard, relaxing the tenseness of his stare, looked at the young man,

thoughtfully.

“After all, it is the brig that will want you. She will never change.

The finest craft afloat in these seas. She will carry me about as she

did before, but . . .”

He unclasped his hands, made a sweeping gesture.

Carter gave all his naive sympathy to that man who had certainly rescued

the white people but seemed to have lost his own soul in the attempt.

Carter had heard something from Wasub. He had made out enough of this

story from the old serang's pidgin English to know that the Captain's

native friends, one of them a woman, had perished in a mysterious

catastrophe. But the why of it, and how it came about, remained still

quite incomprehensible to him. Of course, a man like the Captain would

feel terribly cut up. . . .

“You will be soon yourself again, sir,” he said in the kindest possible

tone.

With the same simplicity Lingard shook his head. He was thinking of the

dead Jaffir with his last message delivered and untroubled now by all

these matters of the earth. He had been ordered to tell him to forget

everything. Lingard had an inward shudder. In the dismay of his heart he

might have believed his brig to lie under the very wing of the Angel of

Desolation--so oppressive, so final, and hopeless seemed the silence in

which he and Carter looked at each other, wistfully.

Lingard reached for a sheet of paper amongst several lying on the table,

took up a pen, hesitated a moment, and then wrote:

“Meet me at day-break on the sandbank.”

He addressed the envelope to Mrs. Travers, Yacht Hermit, and pushed it

across the table.

“Send this on board the schooner at once, Mr. Carter. Wait a moment.

When our boats shove off for the sandbank have the forecastle gun fired.

I want to know when that dead man has left the ship.”

He sat alone, leaning his head on his hand, listening, listening

endlessly, for the report of the gun. Would it never come? When it came

at last muffled, distant, with a slight shock through the body of the

brig he remained still with his head leaning on his hand but with a

distinct conviction, with an almost physical certitude, that under the

cotton sheet shrouding the dead man something of himself, too, had left

the ship.

IX

In a roomy cabin, furnished and fitted with austere comfort, Mr. Travers

reposed at ease in a low bed-place under a snowy white sheet and a light

silk coverlet, his head sunk in a white pillow of extreme purity. A

faint scent of lavender hung about the fresh linen. Though lying on his

back like a person who is seriously ill Mr. Travers was conscious

of nothing worse than a great fatigue. Mr. Travers' restfulness had

something faintly triumphant in it. To find himself again on board

his yacht had soothed his vanity and had revived his sense of his own

importance. He contemplated it in a distant perspective, restored to its

proper surroundings and unaffected by an adventure too extraordinary to

trouble a superior mind or even to remain in one's memory for any length

of time. He was not responsible. Like many men ambitious of

directing the affairs of a nation, Mr. Travers disliked the sense of

responsibility. He would not have been above evading it in case of need,

but with perverse loftiness he really, in his heart, scorned it. That

was the reason why he was able to lie at rest and enjoy a sense of

returning vigour. But he did not care much to talk as yet, and that was

why the silence in the stateroom had lasted for hours. The bulkhead lamp

had a green silk shade. It was unnecessary to admit for a moment the

existence of impudence or ruffianism. A discreet knocking at the cabin

door sounded deferential.

Mrs. Travers got up to see what was wanted, and returned without

uttering a single word to the folding armchair by the side of the

bed-place, with an envelope in her hand which she tore open in the

greenish light. Mr. Travers remained incurious but his wife handed to

him an unfolded sheet of paper which he condescended to hold up to his

eyes. It contained only one line of writing. He let the paper fall on

the coverlet and went on reposing as before. It was a sick man's repose.

Mrs. Travers in the armchair, with her hands on the arm-rests, had a

great dignity of attitude.

“I intend to go,” she declared after a time.

“You intend to go,” repeated Mr. Travers in a feeble, deliberate voice.

“Really, it doesn't matter what you decide to do. All this is of so

little importance. It seems to me that there can be no possible object.”

“Perhaps not,” she admitted. “But don't you think that the uttermost

farthing should always be paid?”

Mr. Travers' head rolled over on the pillow and gave a covertly scared

look at that outspoken woman. But it rolled back again at once and the

whole man remained passive, the very embodiment of helpless exhaustion.

Mrs. Travers noticed this, and had the unexpected impression that Mr.

Travers was not so ill as he looked. “He's making the most of it. It's

a matter of diplomacy,” she thought. She thought this without irony,

bitterness, or disgust. Only her heart sank a little lower and she felt

that she could not remain in the cabin with that man for the rest of the

evening. For all life--yes! But not for that evening.

“It's simply monstrous,” murmured the man, who was either very

diplomatic or very exhausted, in a languid manner. “There is something

abnormal in you.”

Mrs. Travers got up swiftly.

“One comes across monstrous things. But I assure you that of all the

monsters that wait on what you would call a normal existence the one I

dread most is tediousness. A merciless monster without teeth or claws.

Impotent. Horrible!”

She left the stateroom, vanishing out of it with noiseless resolution.

No power on earth could have kept her in there for another minute. On

deck she found a moonless night with a velvety tepid feeling in the air,

and in the sky a mass of blurred starlight, like the tarnished tinsel of

a worn-out, very old, very tedious firmament. The usual routine of the

yacht had been already resumed, the awnings had been stretched aft, a

solitary round lamp had been hung as usual under the main boom. Out of

the deep gloom behind it d'Alcacer, a long, loose figure, lounged in the

dim light across the deck. D'Alcacer had got promptly in touch with

the store of cigarettes he owed to the Governor General's generosity. A

large, pulsating spark glowed, illuminating redly the design of his

lips under the fine dark moustache, the tip of his nose, his lean chin.

D'Alcacer reproached himself for an unwonted light-heartedness which

had somehow taken possession of him. He had not experienced that sort of

feeling for years. Reprehensible as it was he did not want anything to

disturb it. But as he could not run away openly from Mrs. Travers he

advanced to meet her.

“I do hope you have nothing to tell me,” he said with whimsical

earnestness.

“I? No! Have you?”

He assured her he had not, and proffered a request. “Don't let us tell

each other anything, Mrs. Travers. Don't let us think of anything. I

believe it will be the best way to get over the evening.” There was real

anxiety in his jesting tone.

“Very well,” Mrs. Travers assented, seriously. “But in that case we had

better not remain together.” She asked, then, d'Alcacer to go below and

sit with Mr. Travers who didn't like to be left alone. “Though he, too,

doesn't seem to want to be told anything,” she added, parenthetically,

and went on: “But I must ask you something else, Mr. d'Alcacer. I

propose to sit down in this chair and go to sleep--if I can. Will you

promise to call me about five o'clock? I prefer not to speak to any one

on deck, and, moreover, I can trust you.”

He bowed in silence and went away slowly. Mrs. Travers, turning her

head, perceived a steady light at the brig's yard-arm, very bright among

the tarnished stars. She walked aft and looked over the taffrail. It was

exactly like that other night. She half expected to hear presently the

low, rippling sound of an advancing boat. But the universe remained

without a sound. When she at last dropped into the deck chair she was

absolutely at the end of her power of thinking. “I suppose that's

how the condemned manage to get some sleep on the night before the

execution,” she said to herself a moment before her eyelids closed as if

under a leaden hand.

She woke up, with her face wet with tears, out of a vivid dream of

Lingard in chain-mail armour and vaguely recalling a Crusader, but

bare-headed and walking away from her in the depths of an impossible

landscape. She hurried on to catch up with him but a throng of

barbarians with enormous turbans came between them at the last moment

and she lost sight of him forever in the flurry of a ghastly sand-storm.

What frightened her most was that she had not been able to see his face.

It was then that she began to cry over her hard fate. When she woke up

the tears were still rolling down her cheeks and she perceived in the

light of the deck-lamp d'Alcacer arrested a little way off.

“Did you have to speak to me?” she asked.

“No,” said d'Alcacer. “You didn't give me time. When I came as far as

this I fancied I heard you sobbing. It must have been a delusion.”

“Oh, no. My face is wet yet. It was a dream. I suppose it is five

o'clock. Thank you for being so punctual. I have something to do before

sunrise.”

D'Alcacer moved nearer. “I know. You have decided to keep an appointment

on the sandbank. Your husband didn't utter twenty words in all these

hours but he managed to tell me that piece of news.”

“I shouldn't have thought,” she murmured, vaguely.

“He wanted me to understand that it had no importance,” stated d'Alcacer

in a very serious tone.

“Yes. He knows what he is talking about,” said Mrs. Travers in such

a bitter tone as to disconcert d'Alcacer for a moment. “I don't see a

single soul about the decks,” Mrs. Travers continued, almost directly.

“The very watchmen are asleep,” said d'Alcacer.

“There is nothing secret in this expedition, but I prefer not to call

any one. Perhaps you wouldn't mind pulling me off yourself in our small

boat.”

It seemed to her that d'Alcacer showed some hesitation. She added: “It

has no importance, you know.”

He bowed his assent and preceded her down the side in silence. When she

entered the boat he had the sculls ready and directly she sat down he

shoved off. It was so dark yet that but for the brig's yard-arm light he

could not have kept his direction. He pulled a very deliberate stroke,

looking over his shoulder frequently. It was Mrs. Travers who saw first

the faint gleam of the uncovered sandspit on the black, quiet water.

“A little more to the left,” she said. “No, the other way. . . .”

D'Alcacer obeyed her directions but his stroke grew even slower than

before. She spoke again. “Don't you think that the uttermost farthing

should always be paid, Mr. d'Alcacer?”

D'Alcacer glanced over his shoulder, then: “It would be the only

honourable way. But it may be hard. Too hard for our common fearful

hearts.”

“I am prepared for anything.”

He ceased pulling for a moment . . . “Anything that may be found on

a sandbank,” Mrs. Travers went on. “On an arid, insignificant, and

deserted sandbank.”

D'Alcacer gave two strokes and ceased again.

“There is room for a whole world of suffering on a sandbank, for all the

bitterness and resentment a human soul may be made to feel.”

“Yes, I suppose you would know,” she whispered while he gave a stroke or

two and again glanced over his shoulder. She murmured the words:

“Bitterness, resentment,” and a moment afterward became aware of the

keel of the boat running up on the sand. But she didn't move, and

d'Alcacer, too, remained seated on the thwart with the blades of his

sculls raised as if ready to drop them and back the dinghy out into deep

water at the first sign.

Mrs. Travers made no sign, but she asked, abruptly: “Mr. d'Alcacer, do

you think I shall ever come back?”

Her tone seemed to him to lack sincerity. But who could tell what

this abruptness covered--sincere fear or mere vanity? He asked himself

whether she was playing a part for his benefit, or only for herself.

“I don't think you quite understand the situation, Mrs. Travers. I

don't think you have a clear idea, either of his simplicity or of his

visionary's pride.”

She thought, contemptuously, that there were other things which

d'Alcacer didn't know and surrendered to a sudden temptation to

enlighten him a little.

“You forget his capacity for passion and that his simplicity doesn't

know its own strength.”

There was no mistaking the sincerity of that murmur. “She has felt it,”

d'Alcacer said to himself with absolute certitude. He wondered when,

where, how, on what occasion? Mrs. Travers stood up in the stern sheets

suddenly and d'Alcacer leaped on the sand to help her out of the boat.

“Hadn't I better hang about here to take you back again?” he suggested,

as he let go her hand.

“You mustn't!” she exclaimed, anxiously. “You must return to the yacht.

There will be plenty of light in another hour. I will come to this spot

and wave my handkerchief when I want to be taken off.”

At their feet the shallow water slept profoundly, the ghostly gleam of

the sands baffled the eye by its lack of form. Far off, the growth of

bushes in the centre raised a massive black bulk against the stars to

the southward. Mrs. Travers lingered for a moment near the boat as if

afraid of the strange solitude of this lonely sandbank and of this lone

sea that seemed to fill the whole encircling universe of remote stars

and limitless shadows. “There is nobody here,” she whispered to herself.

“He is somewhere about waiting for you, or I don't know the man,”

affirmed d'Alcacer in an undertone. He gave a vigorous shove which sent

the little boat into the water.

D'Alcacer was perfectly right. Lingard had come up on deck long before

Mrs. Travers woke up with her face wet with tears. The burial party had

returned hours before and the crew of the brig were plunged in

sleep, except for two watchmen, who at Lingard's appearance retreated

noiselessly from the poop. Lingard, leaning on the rail, fell into

a sombre reverie of his past. Reproachful spectres crowded the air,

animated and vocal, not in the articulate language of mortals but

assailing him with faint sobs, deep sighs, and fateful gestures. When he

came to himself and turned about they vanished, all but one dark shape

without sound or movement. Lingard looked at it with secret horror.

“Who's that?” he asked in a troubled voice.

The shadow moved closer: “It's only me, sir,” said Carter, who had left

orders to be called directly the Captain was seen on deck.

“Oh, yes, I might have known,” mumbled Lingard in some confusion. He

requested Carter to have a boat manned and when after a time the young

man told him that it was ready, he said “All right!” and remained

leaning on his elbow.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Carter after a longish silence, “but are

you going some distance?”

“No, I only want to be put ashore on the sandbank.”

Carter was relieved to hear this, but also surprised. “There is nothing

living there, sir,” he said.

“I wonder,” muttered Lingard.

“But I am certain,” Carter insisted. “The last of the women and children

belonging to those cut-throats were taken off by the sampans which

brought you and the yacht-party out.”

He walked at Lingard's elbow to the gangway and listened to his orders.

“Directly there is enough light to see flags by, make a signal to the

schooner to heave short on her cable and loose her sails. If there

is any hanging back give them a blank gun, Mr. Carter. I will have no

shilly-shallying. If she doesn't go at the word, by heavens, I will

drive her out. I am still master here--for another day.”

The overwhelming sense of immensity, of disturbing emptiness, which

affects those who walk on the sands in the midst of the sea, intimidated

Mrs. Travers. The world resembled a limitless flat shadow which was

motionless and elusive. Then against the southern stars she saw a human

form that isolated and lone appeared to her immense: the shape of a

giant outlined amongst the constellations. As it approached her

it shrank to common proportions, got clear of the stars, lost its

awesomeness, and became menacing in its ominous and silent advance. Mrs.

Travers hastened to speak.

“You have asked for me. I am come. I trust you will have no reason to

regret my obedience.”

He walked up quite close to her, bent down slightly to peer into her

face. The first of the tropical dawn put its characteristic cold sheen

into the sky above the Shore of Refuge.

Mrs. Travers did not turn away her head.

“Are you looking for a change in me? No. You won't see it. Now I know

that I couldn't change even if I wanted to. I am made of clay that is

too hard.”

“I am looking at you for the first time,” said Lingard. “I never could

see you before. There were too many things, too many thoughts, too many

people. No, I never saw you before. But now the world is dead.”

He grasped her shoulders, approaching his face close to hers. She never

flinched.

“Yes, the world is dead,” she said. “Look your fill then. It won't be

for long.”

He let her go as suddenly as though she had struck him. The cold white

light of the tropical dawn had crept past the zenith now and the expanse

of the shallow waters looked cold, too, without stir or ripple within

the enormous rim of the horizon where, to the west, a shadow lingered

still.

“Take my arm,” he said.

She did so at once, and turning their backs on the two ships they began

to walk along the sands, but they had not made many steps when Mrs.

Travers perceived an oblong mound with a board planted upright at one

end. Mrs. Travers knew that part of the sands. It was here she used to

walk with her husband and d'Alcacer every evening after dinner,

while the yacht lay stranded and her boats were away in search of

assistance--which they had found--which they had found! This was

something that she had never seen there before. Lingard had suddenly

stopped and looked at it moodily. She pressed his arm to rouse him and

asked, “What is this?”

“This is a grave,” said Lingard in a low voice, and still gazing at the

heap of sand. “I had him taken out of the ship last night. Strange,” he

went on in a musing tone, “how much a grave big enough for one man only

can hold. His message was to forget everything.”

“Never, never,” murmured Mrs. Travers. “I wish I had been on board the

Emma. . . . You had a madman there,” she cried out, suddenly. They moved

on again, Lingard looking at Mrs. Travers who was leaning on his arm.

“I wonder which of us two was mad,” he said.

“I wonder you can bear to look at me,” she murmured. Then Lingard spoke

again.

“I had to see you once more.”

“That abominable Jorgenson,” she whispered to herself.

“No, no, he gave me my chance--before he gave me up.”

Mrs. Travers disengaged her arm and Lingard stopped, too, facing her in

a long silence.

“I could not refuse to meet you,” said Mrs. Travers at last. “I could

not refuse you anything. You have all the right on your side and I don't

care what you do or say. But I wonder at my own courage when I think of

the confession I have to make.” She advanced, laid her hand on Lingard's

shoulder and spoke earnestly. “I shuddered at the thought of meeting you

again. And now you must listen to my confession.”

“Don't say a word,” said Lingard in an untroubled voice and never taking

his eyes from her face. “I know already.”

“You can't,” she cried. Her hand slipped off his shoulder. “Then why

don't you throw me into the sea?” she asked, passionately. “Am I to live

on hating myself?”

“You mustn't!” he said with an accent of fear. “Haven't you understood

long ago that if you had given me that ring it would have been just the

same?”

“Am I to believe this? No, no! You are too generous to a mere sham. You

are the most magnanimous of men but you are throwing it away on me.

Do you think it is remorse that I feel? No. If it is anything it is

despair. But you must have known that--and yet you wanted to look at me

again.”

“I told you I never had a chance before,” said Lingard in an unmoved

voice. “It was only after I heard they gave you the ring that I felt the

hold you have got on me. How could I tell before? What has hate or love

to do with you and me? Hate. Love. What can touch you? For me you stand

above death itself; for I see now that as long as I live you will never

die.”

They confronted each other at the southern edge of the sands as if

afloat on the open sea. The central ridge heaped up by the winds masked

from them the very mastheads of the two ships and the growing brightness

of the light only augmented the sense of their invincible solitude

in the awful serenity of the world. Mrs. Travers suddenly put her arm

across her eyes and averted her face.

Then he added:

“That's all.”

Mrs. Travers let fall her arm and began to retrace her steps,

unsupported and alone. Lingard followed her on the edge of the sand

uncovered by the ebbing tide. A belt of orange light appeared in the

cold sky above the black forest of the Shore of Refuge and faded quickly

to gold that melted soon into a blinding and colourless glare. It was

not till after she had passed Jaffir's grave that Mrs. Travers stole a

backward glance and discovered that she was alone. Lingard had left her

to herself. She saw him sitting near the mound of sand, his back bowed,

his hands clasping his knees, as if he had obeyed the invincible call of

his great visions haunting the grave of the faithful messenger. Shading

her eyes with her hand Mrs. Travers watched the immobility of that man

of infinite illusions. He never moved, he never raised his head. It was

all over. He was done with her. She waited a little longer and then went

slowly on her way.

Shaw, now acting second mate of the yacht, came off with another hand

in a little boat to take Mrs. Travers on board. He stared at her like an

offended owl. How the lady could suddenly appear at sunrise waving her

handkerchief from the sandbank he could not understand. For, even if she

had managed to row herself off secretly in the dark, she could not have

sent the empty boat back to the yacht. It was to Shaw a sort of improper

miracle.

D'Alcacer hurried to the top of the side ladder and as they met on deck

Mrs. Travers astonished him by saying in a strangely provoking tone:

“You were right. I have come back.” Then with a little laugh which

impressed d'Alcacer painfully she added with a nod downward, “and

Martin, too, was perfectly right. It was absolutely unimportant.”

She walked on straight to the taffrail and d'Alcacer followed her aft,

alarmed at her white face, at her brusque movements, at the nervous way

in which she was fumbling at her throat. He waited discreetly till she

turned round and thrust out toward him her open palm on which he saw a

thick gold ring set with a large green stone.

“Look at this, Mr. d'Alcacer. This is the thing which I asked you

whether I should give up or conceal--the symbol of the last hour--the

call of the supreme minute. And he said it would have made no

difference! He is the most magnanimous of men and the uttermost farthing

has been paid. He has done with me. The most magnanimous . . . but there

is a grave on the sands by which I left him sitting with no glance

to spare for me. His last glance on earth! I am left with this thing.

Absolutely unimportant. A dead talisman.” With a nervous jerk she flung

the ring overboard, then with a hurried entreaty to d'Alcacer, “Stay

here a moment. Don't let anybody come near us,” she burst into tears and

turned her back on him.

Lingard returned on board his brig and in the early afternoon the

Lightning got under way, running past the schooner to give her a lead

through the maze of Shoals. Lingard was on deck but never looked once

at the following vessel. Directly both ships were in clear water he went

below saying to Carter: “You know what to do.”

“Yes, sir,” said Carter.

Shortly after his Captain had disappeared from the deck Carter laid the

main topsail to the mast. The Lightning lost her way while the schooner

with all her light kites abroad passed close under her stern holding on

her course. Mrs. Travers stood aft very rigid, gripping the rail with

both hands. The brim of her white hat was blown upward on one side and

her yachting skirt stirred in the breeze. By her side d'Alcacer waved

his hand courteously. Carter raised his cap to them.

During the afternoon he paced the poop with measured steps, with a pair

of binoculars in his hand. At last he laid the glasses down, glanced at

the compass-card and walked to the cabin skylight which was open.

“Just lost her, sir,” he said. All was still down there. He raised his

voice a little:

“You told me to let you know directly I lost sight of the yacht.”

The sound of a stifled groan reached the attentive Carter and a weary

voice said, “All right, I am coming.”

When Lingard stepped out on the poop of the Lightning the open water

had turned purple already in the evening light, while to the east the

Shallows made a steely glitter all along the sombre line of the shore.

Lingard, with folded arms, looked over the sea. Carter approached him

and spoke quietly.

“The tide has turned and the night is coming on. Hadn't we better get

away from these Shoals, sir?”

Lingard did not stir.

“Yes, the night is coming on. You may fill the main topsail, Mr.

Carter,” he said and he relapsed into silence with his eyes fixed in

the southern board where the shadows were creeping stealthily toward the

setting sun. Presently Carter stood at his elbow again.

“The brig is beginning to forge ahead, sir,” he said in a warning tone.

Lingard came out of his absorption with a deep tremor of his powerful

frame like the shudder of an uprooted tree.

“How was the yacht heading when you lost sight of her?” he asked.

“South as near as possible,” answered Carter. “Will you give me a course

to steer for the night, sir?”

Lingard's lips trembled before he spoke but his voice was calm.

“Steer north,” he said.