IV
Lingard repeated it all to Mrs. Travers. Her courage, her intelligence,the quickness of her apprehension, the colour of her eyes and theintrepidity of her glance evoked in him an admiring enthusiasm. Shestood by his side! Every moment that fatal illusion clung closer to hissoul--like a garment of light--like an armour of fire.
He was unwilling to face the facts. All his life--till that day--hadbeen a wrestle with events in the daylight of this world, but now hecould not bring his mind to the consideration of his position. Itwas Mrs. Travers who, after waiting awhile, forced on him the painof thought by wanting to know what bearing Hassim's news had upon thesituation.
Lingard had not the slightest doubt Daman wanted him to know what hadbeen done with the prisoners. That is why Daman had welcomed Hassim, andlet him hear the decision and had allowed him to leave the camp on thesandbank. There could be only one object in this; to let him, Lingard,know that the prisoners had been put out of his reach as long as heremained in his brig. Now this brig was his strength. To make him leavehis brig was like removing his hand from his sword.
"Do you understand what I mean, Mrs. Travers?" he asked. "They areafraid of me because I know how to fight this brig. They fear thebrig because when I am on board her, the brig and I are one. An armedman--don't you see? Without the brig I am disarmed, without me she can'tstrike. So Daman thinks. He does not know everything but he is not faroff the truth. He says to himself that if I man the boats to go afterthese whites into the lagoon then his Illanuns will get the yacht forsure--and perhaps the brig as well. If I stop here with my brig he holdsthe two white men and can talk as big as he pleases. Belarab believes inme no doubt, but Daman trusts no man on earth. He simply does not knowhow to trust any one, because he is always plotting himself. He came tohelp me and as soon as he found I was not there he began to plot withTengga. Now he has made a move--a clever move; a cleverer move than hethinks. Why? I'll tell you why. Because I, Tom Lingard, haven't a singlewhite man aboard this brig I can trust. Not one. I only just discoveredmy mate's got the notion I am some kind of pirate. And all your yachtpeople think the same. It is as though you had brought a curse on mein your yacht. Nobody believes me. Good God! What have I come to! Eventhose two--look at them--I say look at them! By all the stars they doubtme! Me! . . ."
He pointed at Hassim and Immada. The girl seemed frightened. Hassimlooked on calm and intelligent with inexhaustible patience. Lingard'svoice fell suddenly.
"And by heavens they may be right. Who knows? You? Do you know? Theyhave waited for years. Look. They are waiting with heavy hearts. Do youthink that I don't care? Ought I to have kept it all in--told no one--noone--not even you? Are they waiting for what will never come now?"
Mrs. Travers rose and moved quickly round the table. "Can we giveanything to this--this Daman or these other men? We could give them morethan they could think of asking. I--my husband. . . ."
"Don't talk to me of your husband," he said, roughly. "You don't knowwhat you are doing." She confronted the sombre anger of his eyes--"But Imust," she asserted with heat.--"Must," he mused, noticing that she wasonly half a head less tall than himself. "Must! Oh, yes. Of course, youmust. Must! Yes. But I don't want to hear. Give! What can you give? Youmay have all the treasures of the world for all I know. No! You can'tgive anything. . . ."
"I was thinking of your difficulty when I spoke," she interrupted. Hiseyes wandered downward following the line of her shoulder.--"Of me--ofme!" he repeated.
All this was said almost in whispers. The sound of slow footsteps washeard on deck above their heads. Lingard turned his face to the openskylight.
"On deck there! Any wind?"
All was still for a moment. Somebody above answered in a leisurely tone:
"A steady little draught from the northward."
Then after a pause added in a mutter:
"Pitch dark."
"Aye, dark enough," murmured Lingard. He must do something. Now. Atonce. The world was waiting. The world full of hopes and fear.What should he do? Instead of answering that question he traced theungleaming coils of her twisted hair and became fascinated by a straylock at her neck. What should he do? No one to leave his brig to. Thevoice that had answered his question was Carter's voice. "He is hangingabout keeping his eye on me," he said to Mrs. Travers. She shook herhead and tried to smile. The man above coughed discreetly. "No," saidLingard, "you must understand that you have nothing to give."
The man on deck who seemed to have lingered by the skylight was heardsaying quietly, "I am at hand if you want me, Mrs. Travers." Hassim andImmada looked up. "You see," exclaimed Lingard. "What did I tell you?He's keeping his eye on me! On board my own ship. Am I dreaming? Am I ina fever? Tell him to come down," he said after a pause. Mrs. Traversdid so and Lingard thought her voice very commanding and very sweet."There's nothing in the world I love so much as this brig," he went on."Nothing in the world. If I lost her I would have no standing room onthe earth for my feet. You don't understand this. You can't."
Carter came in and shut the cabin door carefully. He looked withserenity at everyone in turn.
"All quiet?" asked Lingard.
"Quiet enough if you like to call it so," he answered. "But if you onlyput your head outside the door you'll hear them all on the quarter-decksnoring against each other, as if there were no wives at home and nopirates at sea."
"Look here," said Lingard. "I found out that I can't trust my mate."
"Can't you?" drawled Carter. "I am not exactly surprised. I must say_he_ does not snore but I believe it is because he is too crazy tosleep. He waylaid me on the poop just now and said something about evilcommunications corrupting good manners. Seems to me I've heard thatbefore. Queer thing to say. He tried to make it out somehow that if hewasn't corrupt it wasn't your fault. As if this was any concern of mine.He's as mad as he's fat--or else he puts it on." Carter laughed a littleand leaned his shoulders against a bulkhead.
Lingard gazed at the woman who expected so much from him and in thelight she seemed to shed he saw himself leading a column of armed boatsto the attack of the Settlement. He could burn the whole place to theground and drive every soul of them into the bush. He could! Andthere was a surprise, a shock, a vague horror at the thought of thedestructive power of his will. He could give her ever so many lives. Hehad seen her yesterday, and it seemed to him he had been all his lifewaiting for her to make a sign. She was very still. He pondered a planof attack. He saw smoke and flame--and next moment he saw himself aloneamongst shapeless ruins with the whispers, with the sigh and moan of theShallows in his ears. He shuddered, and shaking his hand:
"No! I cannot give you all those lives!" he cried.
Then, before Mrs. Travers could guess the meaning of this outburst, hedeclared that as the two captives must be saved he would go alone intothe lagoon. He could not think of using force. "You understand why," hesaid to Mrs. Travers and she whispered a faint "Yes." He would run therisk alone. His hope was in Belarab being able to see where his trueinterest lay. "If I can only get at him I would soon make him see," hemused aloud. "Haven't I kept his power up for these two years past? Andhe knows it, too. He feels it." Whether he would be allowed to reachBelarab was another matter. Lingard lost himself in deep thought. "Hewould not dare," he burst out. Mrs. Travers listened with parted lips.Carter did not move a muscle of his youthful and self-possessed face;only when Lingard, turning suddenly, came up close to him and asked witha red flash of eyes and in a lowered voice, "Could you fight this brig?"something like a smile made a stir amongst the hairs of his little fairmoustache.
"'Could I?" he said. "I could try, anyhow." He paused, and added hardlyabove his breath, "For the lady--of course."
Lingard seemed staggered as though he had been hit in the chest. "I wasthinking of the brig," he said, gently.
"Mrs. Travers would be on board," retorted Carter.
"What! on board. Ah yes; on board. Where else?" stammered Lingard.
Carter looked at him in amazement.
"Fight! You ask!" he said, slowly."You just try me."
"I shall," ejaculated Lingard. He left the cabin calling out "serang!" Athin cracked voice was heard immediately answering, "Tuan!" and the doorslammed to.
"You trust him, Mrs. Travers?" asked Carter, rapidly.
"You do not--why?" she answered.
"I can't make him out. If he was another kind of man I would say he wasdrunk," said Carter. "Why is he here at all--he, and this brig of his?Excuse my boldness--but have you promised him anything?"
"I--I promised!" exclaimed Mrs. Travers in a bitter tone which silencedCarter for a moment.
"So much the better," he said at last. "Let him show what he can dofirst and . . ."
"Here! Take this," said Lingard, who re-entered the cabin fumbling abouthis neck. Carter mechanically extended his hand.
"What's this for?" he asked, looking at a small brass key attached to athin chain.
"Powder magazine. Trap door under the table. The man who has this keycommands the brig while I am away. The serang understands. You have hervery life in your hand there."
Carter looked at the small key lying in his half-open palm.
"I was just telling Mrs. Travers I didn't trust you--notaltogether. . . ."
"I know all about it," interrupted Lingard, contemptuously. "You carrya blamed pistol in your pocket to blow my brains out--don't you? What'sthat to me? I am thinking of the brig. I think I know your sort. Youwill do."
"Well, perhaps I might," mumbled Carter, modestly.
"Don't be rash," said Lingard, anxiously. "If you've got to fight useyour head as well as your hands. If there's a breeze fight under way. Ifthey should try to board in a calm, trust to the small arms to hold themoff. Keep your head and--" He looked intensely into Carter's eyes; hislips worked without a sound as though he had been suddenly struck dumb."Don't think about me. What's that to you who I am? Think of the ship,"he burst out. "Don't let her go!--Don't let her go!" The passion in hisvoice impressed his hearers who for a time preserved a profound silence.
"All right," said Carter at last. "I will stick to your brig as thoughshe were my own; but I would like to see clear through all this. Lookhere--you are going off somewhere? Alone, you said?"
"Yes. Alone."
"Very well. Mind, then, that you don't come back with a crowd of thosebrown friends of yours--or by the Heavens above us I won't let you comewithin hail of your own ship. Am I to keep this key?"
"Captain Lingard," said Mrs. Travers suddenly. "Would it not be betterto tell him everything?"
"Tell him everything?" repeated Lingard. "Everything! Yesterday it mighthave been done. Only yesterday! Yesterday, did I say? Only six hoursago--only six hours ago I had something to tell. You heard it. And nowit's gone. Tell him! There's nothing to tell any more." He remained fora time with bowed head, while before him Mrs. Travers, who had begun agesture of protest, dropped her arms suddenly. In a moment he looked upagain.
"Keep the key," he said, calmly, "and when the time comes step forwardand take charge. I am satisfied."
"I would like to see clear through all this though," muttered Carteragain. "And for how long are you leaving us, Captain?" Lingard made noanswer. Carter waited awhile. "Come, sir," he urged. "I ought to havesome notion. What is it? Two, three days?" Lingard started.
"Days," he repeated. "Ah, days. What is it you want to know? Two . . .three--what did the old fellow say--perhaps for life." This was spokenso low that no one but Carter heard the last words.--"Do you mean it?"he murmured. Lingard nodded.--"Wait as long as you can--then go," hesaid in the same hardly audible voice. "Go where?"--"Where you like,nearest port, any port."--"Very good. That's something plain at anyrate," commented the young man with imperturbable good humour.
"I go, O Hassim!" began Lingard and the Malay made a slow inclination ofthe head which he did not raise again till Lingard had ceased speaking.He betrayed neither surprise nor any other emotion while Lingard in afew concise and sharp sentences made him acquainted with his purpose tobring about singlehanded the release of the prisoners. When Lingard hadended with the words: "And you must find a way to help me in the time oftrouble, O Rajah Hassim," he looked up and said:
"Good. You never asked me for anything before."
He smiled at his white friend. There was something subtle in the smileand afterward an added firmness in the repose of the lips. Immada moveda step forward. She looked at Lingard with terror in her black anddilated eyes. She exclaimed in a voice whose vibration startled thehearts of all the hearers with an indefinable sense of alarm, "He willperish, Hassim! He will perish alone!"
"No," said Hassim. "Thy fear is as vain to-night as it was at sunrise.He shall not perish alone."
Her eyelids dropped slowly. From her veiled eyes the tears fell,vanishing in the silence. Lingard's forehead became furrowed by foldsthat seemed to contain an infinity of sombre thoughts. "Remember, OHassim, that when I promised you to take you back to your country youpromised me to be a friend to all white men. A friend to all whites whoare of my people, forever."
"My memory is good, O Tuan," said Hassim; "I am not yet back in mycountry, but is not everyone the ruler of his own heart? Promises madeby a man of noble birth live as long as the speaker endures."
"Good-bye," said Lingard to Mrs. Travers. "You will be safe here." Helooked all around the cabin. "I leave you," he began again and stoppedshort. Mrs. Travers' hand, resting lightly on the edge of the table,began to tremble. "It's for you . . . Yes. For you alone . . . and itseems it can't be. . . ."
It seemed to him that he was saying good-bye to all the world, thathe was taking a last leave of his own self. Mrs. Travers did not say aword, but Immada threw herself between them and cried:
"You are a cruel woman! You are driving him away from where his strengthis. You put madness into his heart, O! Blind--without pity--withoutshame! . . ."
"Immada," said Hassim's calm voice. Nobody moved.
"What did she say to me?" faltered Mrs. Travers and again repeated in avoice that sounded hard, "What did she say?"
"Forgive her," said Lingard. "Her fears are for me . . ."--"It's aboutyour going?" Mrs. Travers interrupted, swiftly.
"Yes, it is--and you must forgive her." He had turned away his eyes withsomething that resembled embarrassment but suddenly he was assailed byan irresistible longing to look again at that woman. At the moment ofparting he clung to her with his glance as a man holds with his handsa priceless and disputed possession. The faint blush that overspreadgradually Mrs. Travers' features gave her face an air of extraordinaryand startling animation.
"The danger you run?" she asked, eagerly. He repelled the suggestion bya slighting gesture of the hand.--"Nothing worth looking at twice. Don'tgive it a thought," he said. "I've been in tighter places." He clappedhis hands and waited till he heard the cabin door open behind his back."Steward, my pistols." The mulatto in slippers, aproned to the chin,glided through the cabin with unseeing eyes as though for him no onethere had existed. . . .--"Is it my heart that aches so?" Mrs. Traversasked herself, contemplating Lingard's motionless figure. "How long willthis sensation of dull pain last? Will it last forever. . . ."--"Howmany changes of clothes shall I put up, sir?" asked the steward, whileLingard took the pistols from him and eased the hammers after puttingon fresh caps.--"I will take nothing this time, steward." He received inturn from the mulatto's hands a red silk handkerchief, a pocket book, acigar-case. He knotted the handkerchief loosely round his throat; itwas evident he was going through the routine of every departure forthe shore; he even opened the cigar-case to see whether it had beenfilled.--"Hat, sir," murmured the half-caste. Lingard flung it on hishead.--"Take your orders from this lady, steward--till I come back. Thecabin is hers--do you hear?" He sighed ready to go and seemed unable tolift a foot.--"I am coming with you," declared Mrs. Travers suddenly ina tone of unalterable decision. He did not look at her; he did not evenlook up; he said nothing, till after Carter had cried: "You can't, Mrs.Travers!"--when without budging he whispere
d to himself:--"Of course."Mrs. Travers had pulled already the hood of her cloak over her headand her face within the dark cloth had turned an intense and unearthlywhite, in which the violet of her eyes appeared unfathomably mysterious.Carter started forward.--"You don't know this man," he almost shouted.
"I do know him," she said, and before the reproachfully unbelievingattitude of the other she added, speaking slowly and with emphasis:"There is not, I verily believe, a single thought or act of his lifethat I don't know."--"It's true--it's true," muttered Lingard tohimself. Carter threw up his arms with a groan. "Stand back," said avoice that sounded to him like a growl of thunder, and he felt a gripon his hand which seemed to crush every bone. He jerked it away.--"Mrs.Travers! stay," he cried. They had vanished through the open door andthe sound of their footsteps had already died away. Carter turned aboutbewildered as if looking for help.--"Who is he, steward? Who in the nameof all the mad devils is he?" he asked, wildly. He was confounded by thecold and philosophical tone of the answer:--"'Tain't my place to troubleabout that, sir--nor yours I guess."--"Isn't it!" shouted Carter. "Why,he has carried the lady off." The steward was looking critically atthe lamp and after a while screwed the light down.--"That's better," hemumbled.--"Good God! What is a fellow to do?" continued Carter, lookingat Hassim and Immada who were whispering together and gave him only anabsent glance. He rushed on deck and was struck blind instantly by thenight that seemed to have been lying in wait for him; he stumbled oversomething soft, kicked something hard, flung himself on the rail. "Comeback," he cried. "Come back. Captain! Mrs. Travers!--or let me come,too."
He listened. The breeze blew cool against his cheek. A black bandageseemed to lie over his eyes. "Gone," he groaned, utterly crushed.And suddenly he heard Mrs. Travers' voice remote in the depths ofthe night.--"Defend the brig," it said, and these words, pronouncingthemselves in the immensity of a lightless universe, thrilled everyfibre of his body by the commanding sadness of their tone. "Defend,defend the brig." . . . "I am damned if I do," shouted Carter indespair. "Unless you come back! . . . Mrs. Travers!"
". . . as though--I were--on board--myself," went on the risingcadence of the voice, more distant now, a marvel of faint and imperiousclearness.
Carter shouted no more; he tried to make out the boat for a time, andwhen, giving it up, he leaped down from the rail, the heavy obscurityof the brig's main deck was agitated like a sombre pool by his jump,swayed, eddied, seemed to break up. Blotches of darkness recoiled,drifted away, bare feet shuffled hastily, confused murmurs died out."Lascars," he muttered, "The crew is all agog." Afterward he listenedfor a moment to the faintly tumultuous snores of the white men sleepingin rows, with their heads under the break of the poop. Somewhereabout his feet, the yacht's black dog, invisible, and chained to adeck-ringbolt, whined, rattled the thin links, pattered with his clawsin his distress at the unfamiliar surroundings, begging for the charityof human notice. Carter stooped impulsively, and was met by a startlinglick in the face.--"Hallo, boy!" He thumped the thick curly sides,stroked the smooth head--"Good boy, Rover. Down. Lie down, dog. Youdon't know what to make of it--do you, boy?" The dog became still asdeath. "Well, neither do I," muttered Carter. But such natures arehelped by a cheerful contempt for the intricate and endless suggestionsof thought. He told himself that he would soon see what was to come ofit, and dismissed all speculation. Had he been a little older he wouldhave felt that the situation was beyond his grasp; but he was tooyoung to see it whole and in a manner detached from himself. All theseinexplicable events filled him with deep concern--but then on the otherhand he had the key of the magazine and he could not find it in hisheart to dislike Lingard. He was positive about this at last, and toknow that much after the discomfort of an inward conflict went a longway toward a solution. When he followed Shaw into the cabin he could notrepress a sense of enjoyment or hide a faint and malicious smile.
"Gone away--did you say? And carried off the lady with him?" discoursedShaw very loud in the doorway. "Did he? Well, I am not surprised. Whatcan you expect from a man like that, who leaves his ship in an openroadstead without--I won't say orders--but without as much as a singleword to his next in command? And at night at that! That just shows youthe kind of man. Is this the way to treat a chief mate? I apprehend hewas riled at the little al-ter-cation we had just before you came onboard. I told him a truth or two--but--never mind. There's the law andthat's enough for me. I am captain as long as he is out of the ship, andif his address before very long is not in one of Her Majesty's jails orother I au-tho-rize you to call me a Dutchman. You mark my words."
He walked in masterfully, sat down and surveyed the cabin in a leisurelyand autocratic manner; but suddenly his eyes became stony with amazementand indignation; he pointed a fat and trembling forefinger.
"Niggers," he said, huskily. "In the cuddy! In the cuddy!" He appearedbereft of speech for a time.
Since he entered the cabin Hassim had been watching him in thoughtfuland expectant silence. "I can't have it," he continued with genuinefeeling in his voice. "Damme! I've too much respect for myself." He rosewith heavy deliberation; his eyes bulged out in a severe anddignified stare. "Out you go!" he bellowed; suddenly, making a stepforward.--"Great Scott! What are you up to, mister?" asked in a tone ofdispassionate surprise the steward whose head appeared in the doorway."These are the Captain's friends." "Show me a man's friends and . . ."began Shaw, dogmatically, but abruptly passed into the tone ofadmonition. "You take your mug out of the way, bottle-washer. They ain'tfriends of mine. I ain't a vagabond. I know what's due to myself. Quit!"he hissed, fiercely. Hassim, with an alert movement, grasped the handleof his kris. Shaw puffed out his cheeks and frowned.--"Look out! Hewill stick you like a prize pig," murmured Carter without movinga muscle. Shaw looked round helplessly.--"And you would enjoy thefun--wouldn't you?" he said with slow bitterness. Carter's distantnon-committal smile quite overwhelmed him by its horrid frigidity.Extreme despondency replaced the proper feeling of racial pride in theprimitive soul of the mate. "My God! What luck! What have I done to fallamongst that lot?" he groaned, sat down, and took his big grey head inhis hands. Carter drew aside to make room for Immada, who, in obedienceto a whisper from her brother, sought to leave the cabin. She passedout after an instant of hesitation, during which she looked up at Carteronce. Her brother, motionless in a defensive attitude, protected herretreat. She disappeared; Hassim's grip on his weapon relaxed; he lookedin turn at every object in the cabin as if to fix its position inhis mind forever, and following his sister, walked out with noiselessfootfalls.
They entered the same darkness which had received, enveloped, and hiddenthe troubled souls of Lingard and Edith, but to these two the light fromwhich they had felt themselves driven away was now like the light offorbidden hopes; it had the awful and tranquil brightness that a lightburning on the shore has for an exhausted swimmer about to give himselfup to the fateful sea. They looked back; it had disappeared; Carter hadshut the cabin door behind them to have it out with Shaw. He wanted toarrive at some kind of working compromise with the nominal commander,but the mate was so demoralized by the novelty of the assaults made uponhis respectability that the young defender of the brig could get nothingfrom him except lamentations mingled with mild blasphemies. The brigslept, and along her quiet deck the voices raised in her cabin--Shaw'sappeals and reproaches directed vociferously to heaven, together withCarter's inflexible drawl mingled into one deadened, modulated, andcontinuous murmur. The lockouts in the waist, motionless and peeringinto obscurity, one ear turned to the sea, were aware of that strangeresonance like the ghost of a quarrel that seemed to hover at theirbacks. Wasub, after seeing Hassim and Immada into their canoe, prowledto and fro the whole length of the vessel vigilantly. There was nota star in the sky and no gleam on the water; there was no horizon, nooutline, no shape for the eye to rest upon, nothing for the hand tograsp. An obscurity that seemed without limit in space and time hadsubmerged the universe like a destroying flood.
A lull of the breeze kept f
or a time the small boat in the neighbourhoodof the brig. The hoisted sail, invisible, fluttered faintly,mysteriously, and the boat rising and falling bodily to the passage ofeach invisible undulation of the waters seemed to repose upon a livingbreast. Lingard, his hand on the tiller, sat up erect, expectant andsilent. Mrs. Travers had drawn her cloak close around her body. Theirglances plunged infinitely deep into a lightless void, and yet they werestill so near the brig that the piteous whine of the dog, mingled withthe angry rattling of the chain, reached their ears faintly, evokingobscure images of distress and fury. A sharp bark ending in a plaintivehowl that seemed raised by the passage of phantoms invisible to men,rent the black stillness, as though the instinct of the brute inspiredby the soul of night had voiced in a lamentable plaint the fear of thefuture, the anguish of lurking death, the terror of shadows. Not farfrom the brig's boat Hassim and Immada in their canoe, letting theirpaddles trail in the water, sat in a silent and invincible torpor asif the fitful puffs of wind had carried to their hearts the breath of asubtle poison that, very soon, would make them die.--"Have you seenthe white woman's eyes?" cried the girl. She struck her palms togetherloudly and remained with her arms extended, with her hands clasped. "OHassim! Have you seen her eyes shining under her eyebrows like rays oflight darting under the arched boughs in a forest? They pierced me. Ishuddered at the sound of her voice! I saw her walk behind him--andit seems to me that she does not live on earth--that all this iswitchcraft."
She lamented in the night. Hassim kept silent. He had no illusions andin any other man but Lingard he would have thought the proceeding nobetter than suicidal folly. For him Travers and d'Alcacer were twopowerful Rajahs--probably relatives of the Ruler of the land of theEnglish whom he knew to be a woman; but why they should come andinterfere with the recovery of his own kingdom was an obscure problem.He was concerned for Lingard's safety. That the risk was incurred mostlyfor his sake--so that the prospects of the great enterprise should notbe ruined by a quarrel over the lives of these whites--did not strikehim so much as may be imagined. There was that in him which made suchan action on Lingard's part appear all but unavoidable. Was he not RajahHassim and was not the other a man of strong heart, of strong arm, ofproud courage, a man great enough to protect highborn princes--a friend?Immada's words called out a smile which, like the words, was lost in thedarkness. "Forget your weariness," he said, gently, "lest, O Sister, weshould arrive too late." The coming day would throw its light on somedecisive event. Hassim thought of his own men who guarded the Emma andhe wished to be where they could hear his voice. He regretted Jaffir wasnot there. Hassim was saddened by the absence from his side of that manwho once had carried what he thought would be his last message to hisfriend. It had not been the last. He had lived to cherish new hopes andto face new troubles and, perchance, to frame another message yet, whiledeath knocked with the hands of armed enemies at the gate. The breezesteadied; the succeeding swells swung the canoe smoothly up the unbrokenridges of water travelling apace along the land. They progressed slowly;but Immada's heart was more weary than her arms, and Hassim, dipping theblade of his paddle without a splash, peered right and left, trying tomake out the shadowy forms of islets. A long way ahead of the canoe andholding the same course, the brig's dinghy ran with broad lug extended,making for that narrow and winding passage between the coast and thesouthern shoals, which led to the mouth of the creek connecting thelagoon with the sea.
Thus on that starless night the Shallows were peopled by uneasy souls.The thick veil of clouds stretched over them, cut them off from therest of the universe. At times Mrs. Travers had in the darkness theimpression of dizzy speed, and again it seemed to her that the boat wasstanding still, that everything in the world was standing still and onlyher fancy roamed free from all trammels. Lingard, perfectly motionlessby her side, steered, shaping his course by the feel of the wind.Presently he perceived ahead a ghostly flicker of faint, livid lightwhich the earth seemed to throw up against the uniform blackness ofthe sky. The dinghy was approaching the expanse of the Shallows. Theconfused clamour of broken water deepened its note.
"How long are we going to sail like this?" asked Mrs. Travers, gently.She did not recognize the voice that pronounced the word "Always" inanswer to her question. It had the impersonal ring of a voice without amaster. Her heart beat fast.
"Captain Lingard!" she cried.
"Yes. What?" he said, nervously, as if startled out of a dream.
"I asked you how long we were going to sail like this," she repeated,distinctly.
"If the breeze holds we shall be in the lagoon soon after daybreak. Thatwill be the right time, too. I shall leave you on board the hulk withJorgenson."
"And you? What will you do?" she asked. She had to wait for a while.
"I will do what I can," she heard him say at last. There was anotherpause. "All I can," he added.
The breeze dropped, the sail fluttered.
"I have perfect confidence in you," she said. "But are you certain ofsuccess?"
"No."
The futility of her question came home to Mrs. Travers. In a few hoursof life she had been torn away from all her certitudes, flung intoa world of improbabilities. This thought instead of augmenting herdistress seemed to soothe her. What she experienced was not doubt andit was not fear. It was something else. It might have been only a greatfatigue.
She heard a dull detonation as if in the depth of the sea. It was hardlymore than a shock and a vibration. A roller had broken amongst theshoals; the livid clearness Lingard had seen ahead flashed and flickeredin expanded white sheets much nearer to the boat now. And all this--thewan burst of light, the faint shock as of something remote and immensefalling into ruins, was taking place outside the limits of herlife which remained encircled by an impenetrable darkness and by animpenetrable silence. Puffs of wind blew about her head and expired;the sail collapsed, shivered audibly, stood full and still in turn;and again the sensation of vertiginous speed and of absolute immobilitysucceeding each other with increasing swiftness merged at last intoa bizarre state of headlong motion and profound peace. The darknessenfolded her like the enervating caress of a sombre universe. It wasgentle and destructive. Its languor seduced her soul into surrender.Nothing existed and even all her memories vanished into space. She wascontent that nothing should exist.
Lingard, aware all the time of their contact in the narrow stern sheetsof the boat, was startled by the pressure of the woman's head droopingon his shoulder. He stiffened himself still more as though he hadtried on the approach of a danger to conceal his life in the breathlessrigidity of his body. The boat soared and descended slowly; a regionof foam and reefs stretched across her course hissing like a giganticcauldron; a strong gust of wind drove her straight at it for a momentthen passed on and abandoned her to the regular balancing of the swell.The struggle of the rocks forever overwhelmed and emerging, with the seaforever victorious and repulsed, fascinated the man. He watched it as hewould have watched something going on within himself while Mrs. Traversslept sustained by his arm, pressed to his side, abandoned to hissupport. The shoals guarding the Shore of Refuge had given him his firstglimpse of success--the solid support he needed for his action. TheShallows were the shelter of his dreams; their voice had the power tosoothe and exalt his thoughts with the promise of freedom for his hopes.Never had there been such a generous friendship. . . . A mass of whitefoam whirling about a centre of intense blackness spun silently past theside of the boat. . . . That woman he held like a captive on his arm hadalso been given to him by the Shallows.
Suddenly his eyes caught on a distant sandbank the red gleam of Daman'scamp fire instantly eclipsed like the wink of a signalling lantern alongthe level of the waters. It brought to his mind the existence of the twomen--those other captives. If the war canoe transporting them into thelagoon had left the sands shortly after Hassim's retreat from Daman'scamp, Travers and d'Alcacer were by this time far away up the creek.Every thought of action had become odious to Lingard since all he coulddo i
n the world now was to hasten the moment of his separation from thatwoman to whom he had confessed the whole secret of his life.
And she slept. She could sleep! He looked down at her as he would havelooked at the slumbering ignorance of a child, but the life within himhad the fierce beat of supreme moments. Near by, the eddies sighed alongthe reefs, the water soughed amongst the stones, clung round the rockswith tragic murmurs that resembled promises, good-byes, or prayers. Fromthe unfathomable distances of the night came the booming of the swellassaulting the seaward face of the Shallows. He felt the woman'snearness with such intensity that he heard nothing. . . . Then suddenlyhe thought of death.
"Wake up!" he shouted in her ear, swinging round in his seat. Mrs.Travers gasped; a splash of water flicked her over the eyes and she feltthe separate drops run down her cheeks, she tasted them on her lips,tepid and bitter like tears. A swishing undulation tossed the boat onhigh followed by another and still another; and then the boat with thebreeze abeam glided through still water, laying over at a steady angle.
"Clear of the reef now," remarked Lingard in a tone of relief.
"Were we in any danger?" asked Mrs. Travers in a whisper.
"Well, the breeze dropped and we drifted in very close to the rocks," heanswered. "I had to rouse you. It wouldn't have done for you to wake upsuddenly struggling in the water."
So she had slept! It seemed to her incredible that she should haveclosed her eyes in this small boat, with the knowledge of theirdesperate errand, on so disturbed a sea. The man by her side leanedforward, extended his arm, and the boat going off before the wind wenton faster on an even keel. A motionless black bank resting on the seastretched infinitely right in their way in ominous stillness. She calledLingard's attention to it. "Look at this awful cloud."
"This cloud is the coast and in a moment we shall be entering thecreek," he said, quietly. Mrs. Travers stared at it. Was it land--land!It seemed to her even less palpable than a cloud, a mere sinisterimmobility above the unrest of the sea, nursing in its depth the unrestof men who, to her mind, were no more real than fantastic shadows.