VI
D'Alcacer, after receiving his warning, stepped back and leaned againstthe edge of the table. He could not ignore in himself a certain emotion.And indeed, when he had asked Mrs. Travers for a sign he expected tobe moved--but he had not expected the sign to come so soon. He expectedthis night to pass like other nights, in broken slumbers, bodilydiscomfort, and the unrest of disconnected thinking. At the same timehe was surprised at his own emotion. He had flattered himself on thepossession of more philosophy. He thought that this famous sense ofself-preservation was a queer thing, a purely animal thing. "For, asa thinking man," he reflected, "I really ought not to care." It wasprobably the unusual that affected him. Clearly. If he had been lyingseriously ill in a room in a hotel and had overheard some ominouswhispers he would not have cared in the least. Ah, but then he wouldhave been ill--and in illness one grows so indifferent. Illness is agreat help to unemotional behaviour, which of course is the correctbehaviour for a man of the world. He almost regretted he was not veryill. But, then, Mr. Travers was obviously ill and it did not seem tohelp him much. D'Alcacer glanced at the bedstead where Mr. Traverspreserved an immobility which struck d'Alcacer as obviously affected.He mistrusted it. Generally he mistrusted Mr. Travers. One couldn't tellwhat he would do next. Not that he could do much one way or another, butthat somehow he threatened to rob the situation of whatever dignity itmay have had as a stroke of fate, as a call on courage. Mr. d'Alcacer,acutely observant and alert for the slightest hints, preferred to lookupon himself as the victim not of a swindle but of a rough man naivelyengaged in a contest with heaven's injustice. D'Alcacer did not examinehis heart, but some lines of a French poet came into his mind, to theeffect that in all times those who fought with an unjust heaven hadpossessed the secret admiration and love of men. He didn't go so far aslove but he could not deny to himself that his feeling toward Lingardwas secretly friendly and--well, appreciative. Mr. Travers sat upsuddenly. What a horrible nuisance, thought d'Alcacer, fixing his eyeson the tips of his shoes with the hope that perhaps the other would liedown again. Mr. Travers spoke.
"Still up, d'Alcacer?"
"I assure you it isn't late. It's dark at six, we dined before seven,that makes the night long and I am not a very good sleeper; that is, Icannot go to sleep till late in the night."
"I envy you," said Mr. Travers, speaking with a sort of drowsy apathy."I am always dropping off and the awakenings are horrible."
D'Alcacer, raising his eyes, noticed that Mrs. Travers and Lingard hadvanished from the light. They had gone to the rail where d'Alcacercould not see them. Some pity mingled with his vexation at Mr. Travers'snatchy wakefulness. There was something weird about the man, hereflected. "Jorgenson," he began aloud.
"What's that?" snapped Mr. Travers.
"It's the name of that lanky old store-keeper who is always about thedecks."
"I haven't seen him. I don't see anybody. I don't know anybody. I prefernot to notice."
"I was only going to say that he gave me a pack of cards; would you likea game of piquet?"
"I don't think I could keep my eyes open," said Mr. Travers in anunexpectedly confidential tone. "Isn't it funny, d'Alcacer? And then Iwake up. It's too awful."
D'Alcacer made no remark and Mr. Travers seemed not to have expectedany.
"When I said my wife was mad," he began, suddenly, causing d'Alcacerto start, "I didn't mean it literally, of course." His tone soundedslightly dogmatic and he didn't seem to be aware of any interval duringwhich he had appeared to sleep. D'Alcacer was convinced more than everthat he had been shamming, and resigned himself wearily to listen,folding his arms across his chest. "What I meant, really," continued Mr.Travers, "was that she is the victim of a craze. Society is subject tocrazes, as you know very well. They are not reprehensible in themselves,but the worst of my wife is that her crazes are never like those of thepeople with whom she naturally associates. They generally run counter tothem. This peculiarity has given me some anxiety, you understand, in theposition we occupy. People will begin to say that she is eccentric. Doyou see her anywhere, d'Alcacer?"
D'Alcacer was thankful to be able to say that he didn't see Mrs.Travers. He didn't even hear any murmurs, though he had no doubt thateverybody on board the Emma was wide awake by now. But Mr. Traversinspired him with invincible mistrust and he thought it prudent to add:
"You forget that your wife has a room in the deckhouse."
This was as far as he would go, for he knew very well that she was notin the deckhouse. Mr. Travers, completely convinced by the statement,made no sound. But neither did he lie down again. D'Alcacer gave himselfup to meditation. The night seemed extremely oppressive. At Lingard'sshout for Jorgenson, that in the profound silence struck his earsominously, he raised his eyes and saw Mrs. Travers outside the door ofthe Cage. He started forward but she was already within. He saw she wasmoved. She seemed out of breath and as if unable to speak at first.
"Hadn't we better shut the door?" suggested d'Alcacer.
"Captain Lingard's coming in," she whispered to him. "He has made up hismind."
"That's an excellent thing," commented d'Alcacer, quietly. "I concludefrom this that we shall hear something."
"You shall hear it all from me," breathed out Mrs. Travers.
"Ah!" exclaimed d'Alcacer very low.
By that time Lingard had entered, too, and the decks of the Emma wereall astir with moving figures. Jorgenson's voice was also heard givingdirections. For nearly a minute the four persons within the Cageremained motionless. A shadowy Malay in the gangway said suddenly:"Sudah, Tuan," and Lingard murmured, "Ready, Mrs. Travers."
She seized d'Alcacer's arm and led him to the side of the Cage furthestfrom the corner in which Mr. Travers' bed was placed, while Lingardbusied himself in pricking up the wick of the Cage lantern as if it hadsuddenly occurred to him that this, whatever happened, should not be adeed of darkness. Mr. Travers did nothing but turn his head to look overhis shoulder.
"One moment," said d'Alcacer, in a low tone and smiling at Mrs. Travers'agitation. "Before you tell me anything let me ask you: 'Have _you_ madeup your mind?'" He saw with much surprise a widening of her eyes. Was itindignation? A pause as of suspicion fell between those two people. Thend'Alcacer said apologetically: "Perhaps I ought not to have asked thatquestion," and Lingard caught Mrs. Travers' words, "Oh, I am not afraidto answer that question."
Then their voices sank. Lingard hung the lamp up again and stood idle inthe revived light; but almost immediately he heard d'Alcacer calling himdiscreetly.
"Captain Lingard!"
He moved toward them at once. At the same instant Mr. Travers' headpivoted away from the group to its frontal position.
D'Alcacer, very serious, spoke in a familiar undertone.
"Mrs. Travers tells me that we must be delivered up to those Moors onshore."
"Yes, there is nothing else for it," said Lingard.
"I confess I am a bit startled," said d'Alcacer; but except for aslightly hurried utterance nobody could have guessed at anythingresembling emotion.
"I have a right to my good name," said Lingard, also very calm, whileMrs. Travers near him, with half-veiled eyes, listened impassive like apresiding genius.
"I wouldn't question that for a moment," conceded d'Alcacer. "A pointof honour is not to be discussed. But there is such a thing as humanity,too. To be delivered up helplessly. . . ."
"Perhaps!" interrupted Lingard. "But you needn't feel hopeless. I amnot at liberty to give up my life for your own. Mrs. Travers knows why.That, too, is engaged."
"Always on your honour?"
"I don't know. A promise is a promise."
"Nobody can be held to the impossible," remarked d'Alcacer.
"Impossible! What is impossible? I don't know it. I am not a man to talkof the impossible or dodge behind it. I did not bring you here."
D'Alcacer lowered his head for a moment. "I have finished," he said,gravely. "That much I had to say. I hope you don't think I have appear
edunduly anxious."
"It's the best policy, too." Mrs. Travers made herself heard suddenly.Nothing of her moved but her lips, she did not even raise her eyes."It's the only possible policy. You believe me, Mr. d'Alcacer? . . ." Hemade an almost imperceptible movement of the head. . . . "Well, then,I put all my hope in you, Mr. d'Alcacer, to get this over as easily aspossible and save us all from some odious scene. You think perhaps thatit is I who ought to. . . ."
"No, no! I don't think so," interrupted d'Alcacer. "It would beimpossible."
"I am afraid it would," she admitted, nervously.
D'Alcacer made a gesture as if to beg her to say no more and at oncecrossed over to Mr. Travers' side of the Cage. He did not want to givehimself time to think about his task. Mr. Travers was sitting up onthe camp bedstead with a light cotton sheet over his legs. He stared atnothing, and on approaching him d'Alcacer disregarded the slight sinkingof his own heart at this aspect which seemed to be that of extremeterror. "This is awful," he thought. The man kept as still as a hare inits form.
The impressed d'Alcacer had to make an effort to bring himself to taphim lightly on the shoulder.
"The moment has come, Travers, to show some fortitude," he said witheasy intimacy. Mr. Travers looked up swiftly. "I have just been talkingto your wife. She had a communication from Captain Lingard for us both.It remains for us now to preserve as much as possible our dignity. Ihope that if necessary we will both know how to die."
In a moment of profound stillness, d'Alcacer had time to wonder whetherhis face was as stony in expression as the one upturned to him. Butsuddenly a smile appeared on it, which was certainly the last thingd'Alcacer expected to see. An indubitable smile. A slightly contemptuoussmile.
"My wife has been stuffing your head with some more of her nonsense."Mr. Travers spoke in a voice which astonished d'Alcacer as much as thesmile, a voice that was not irritable nor peevish, but had a distinctnote of indulgence. "My dear d'Alcacer, that craze has got such a holdof her that she would tell you any sort of tale. Social impostors,mediums, fortune-tellers, charlatans of all sorts do obtain a strangeinfluence over women. You have seen that sort of thing yourself. I had atalk with her before dinner. The influence that bandit has got over heris incredible. I really believe the fellow is half crazy himself. Theyoften are, you know. I gave up arguing with her. Now, what is it youhave got to tell me? But I warn you that I am not going to take itseriously."
He rejected briskly the cotton sheet, put his feet to the ground andbuttoned his jacket. D'Alcacer, as he talked, became aware by the slightnoise behind him that Mrs. Travers and Lingard were leaving the Cage,but he went on to the end and then waited anxiously for the answer.
"See! She has followed him out on deck," were Mr. Travers' first words."I hope you understand that it is a mere craze. You can't help seeingthat. Look at her costume. She simply has lost her head. Luckily theworld needn't know. But suppose that something similar had happened athome. It would have been extremely awkward. Oh! yes, I will come. I willgo anywhere. I can't stand this hulk, those people, this infernal Cage.I believe I should fall ill if I were to remain here."
The inward detached voice of Jorgenson made itself heard near thegangway saying: "The boat has been waiting for this hour past, KingTom."
"Let us make a virtue of necessity and go with a good grace," saidd'Alcacer, ready to take Mr. Travers under the arm persuasively, for hedid not know what to make of that gentleman.
But Mr. Travers seemed another man. "I am afraid, d'Alcacer, that you,too, are not very strong-minded. I am going to take a blanket off thisbedstead. . . ." He flung it hastily over his arm and followed d'Alcacerclosely. "What I suffer mostly from, strange to say, is cold."
Mrs. Travers and Lingard were waiting near the gangway. To everybody'sextreme surprise Mr. Travers addressed his wife first.
"You were always laughing at people's crazes," was what he said, "andnow you have a craze of your own. But we won't discuss that."
D'Alcacer passed on, raising his cap to Mrs. Travers, and went down theship's side into the boat. Jorgenson had vanished in his own manner likean exorcised ghost, and Lingard, stepping back, left husband and wifeface to face.
"Did you think I was going to make a fuss?" asked Mr. Travers in a verylow voice. "I assure you I would rather go than stay here. You didn'tthink that? You have lost all sense of reality, of probability. I wasjust thinking this evening that I would rather be anywhere than herelooking on at you. At your folly. . . ."
Mrs. Travers' loud, "Martin!" made Lingard wince, caused d'Alcacerto lift his head down there in the boat, and even Jorgenson, forwardsomewhere out of sight, ceased mumbling in his moustache. The onlyperson who seemed not to have heard that exclamation was Mr. Travershimself, who continued smoothly:
". . . at the aberration of your mind, you who seemed so superior tocommon credulities. You are not yourself, not at all, and some day youwill admit to me that . . . No, the best thing will be to forget it, asyou will soon see yourself. We shall never mention that subject in thefuture. I am certain you will be only too glad to agree with me on thatpoint."
"How far ahead are you looking?" asked Mrs. Travers, finding her voiceand even the very tone in which she would have addressed him had theybeen about to part in the hall of their town house. She might have beenasking him at what time he expected to be home, while a footman held thedoor open and the brougham waited in the street.
"Not very far. This can't last much longer." Mr. Travers made a movementas if to leave her exactly as though he were rather pressed to keepan appointment. "By the by," he said, checking himself, "I suppose thefellow understands thoroughly that we are wealthy. He could hardly doubtthat."
"It's the last thought that would enter his head," said Mrs. Travers.
"Oh, yes, just so," Mr. Travers allowed a little impatience to pierceunder his casual manner. "But I don't mind telling you that I have hadenough of this. I am prepared to make--ah!--to make concessions. A largepecuniary sacrifice. Only the whole position is so absurd! He mightconceivably doubt my good faith. Wouldn't it be just as well if you,with your particular influence, would hint to him that with me he wouldhave nothing to fear? I am a man of my word."
"That is the first thing he would naturally think of any man," said Mrs.Travers.
"Will your eyes never be opened?" Mr. Travers began, irritably, thengave it up. "Well, so much the better then. I give you a free hand."
"What made you change your attitude like this?" asked Mrs. Travers,suspiciously.
"My regard for you," he answered without hesitation.
"I intended to join you in your captivity. I was just trying to persuadehim. . . ."
"I forbid you absolutely," whispered Mr. Travers, forcibly. "I am gladto get away. I don't want to see you again till your craze is over."
She was confounded by his secret vehemence. But instantly succeeding hisfierce whisper came a short, inane society laugh and a much louder, "Notthat I attach any importance . . ."
He sprang away, as it were, from his wife, and as he went over thegangway waved his hand to her amiably.
Lighted dimly by the lantern on the roof of the deckhouse Mrs. Traversremained very still with lowered head and an aspect of profoundmeditation. It lasted but an instant before she moved off and brushingagainst Lingard passed on with downcast eyes to her deck cabin. Lingardheard the door shut. He waited awhile, made a movement toward thegangway but checked himself and followed Mrs. Travers into her cabin.
It was pitch dark in there. He could see absolutely nothing and wasoppressed by the profound stillness unstirred even by the sound ofbreathing.
"I am going on shore," he began, breaking the black and deathlikesilence enclosing him and the invisible woman. "I wanted to saygood-bye."
"You are going on shore," repeated Mrs. Travers. Her voice wasemotionless, blank, unringing.
"Yes, for a few hours, or for life," Lingard said in measured tones. "Imay have to die with them or to die maybe for others. For you, if Io
nly knew how to manage it, I would want to live. I am telling you thisbecause it is dark. If there had been a light in here I wouldn't havecome in."
"I wish you had not," uttered the same unringing woman's voice. "You arealways coming to me with those lives and those deaths in your hand."
"Yes, it's too much for you," was Lingard's undertoned comment. "Youcould be no other than true. And you are innocent! Don't wish me life,but wish me luck, for you are innocent--and you will have to take yourchance."
"All luck to you, King Tom," he heard her say in the darkness in whichhe seemed now to perceive the gleam of her hair. "I will take my chance.And try not to come near me again for I am weary of you."
"I can well believe it," murmured Lingard, and stepped out of the cabin,shutting the door after him gently. For half a minute, perhaps, thestillness continued, and then suddenly the chair fell over in thedarkness. Next moment Mrs. Travers' head appeared in the light of thelamp left on the roof of the deckhouse. Her bare arms grasped the doorposts.
"Wait a moment," she said, loudly, into the shadows of the deck. Sheheard no footsteps, saw nothing moving except the vanishing white shapeof the late Captain H. C. Jorgenson, who was indifferent to the life ofmen. "Wait, King Tom!" she insisted, raising her voice; then, "I didn'tmean it. Don't believe me!" she cried, recklessly.
For the second time that night a woman's voice startled the hearts ofmen on board the Emma. All except the heart of old Jorgenson. The Malaysin the boat looked up from their thwarts. D'Alcacer, sitting in thestern sheets beside Lingard, felt a sinking of his heart.
"What's this?" he exclaimed. "I heard your name on deck. You are wanted,I think."
"Shove off," ordered Lingard, inflexibly, without even looking atd'Alcacer. Mr. Travers was the only one who didn't seem to be awareof anything. A long time after the boat left the Emma's side he leanedtoward d'Alcacer.
"I have a most extraordinary feeling," he said in a cautious undertone."I seem to be in the air--I don't know. Are we on the water, d'Alcacer?Are you quite sure? But of course, we are on the water."
"Yes," said d'Alcacer, in the same tone. "Crossing the Styx--perhaps."He heard Mr. Travers utter an unmoved "Very likely," which he did notexpect. Lingard, his hand on the tiller, sat like a man of stone.
"Then your point of view has changed," whispered d'Alcacer.
"I told my wife to make an offer," went on the earnest whisper of theother man. "A sum of money. But to tell you the truth I don't believevery much in its success."
D'Alcacer made no answer and only wondered whether he didn't like betterMr. Travers' other, unreasonable mood. There was no denying the factthat Mr. Travers was a troubling person. Now he suddenly grippedd'Alcacer's fore-arm and added under his breath: "I doubt everything. Idoubt whether the offer will ever be made."
All this was not very impressive. There was something pitiful in it:whisper, grip, shudder, as of a child frightened in the dark. But theemotion was deep. Once more that evening, but this time aroused by thehusband's distress, d'Alcacer's wonder approached the borders of awe.