IV
Lingard stood the lantern on the table. Its light was very poor. Hedropped on to the sea-chest heavily. He, too, was over-wrought. Hisflannel shirt was open at the neck. He had a broad belt round his waistand was without his jacket. Before him, Mrs. Travers, straight and tallin the gay silks, cottons, and muslins of her outlandish dress, with theends of the scarf thrown over her head, hanging down in front of her,looked dimly splendid and with a black glance out of her white face. Hesaid:
"Do you, too, want to throw me over? I tell you you can't do that now."
"I wasn't thinking of throwing you over, but I don't even know what youmean. There seem to be no end of things I can't do. Hadn't you bettertell me of something that I could do? Have you any idea yourself whatyou want from me?"
"You can let me look at you. You can listen to me. You can speak to me."
"Frankly, I have never shirked doing all those things, whenever youwanted me to. You have led me . . ."
"I led you!" cried Lingard.
"Oh! It was my fault," she said, without anger. "I must have dreamedthen that it was you who came to me in the dark with the tale of yourimpossible life. Could I have sent you away?"
"I wish you had. Why didn't you?"
"Do you want me to tell you that you were irresistible? How could I havesent you away? But you! What made you come back to me with your veryheart on your lips?"
When Lingard spoke after a time it was in jerky sentences.
"I didn't stop to think. I had been hurt. I didn't think of you peopleas ladies and gentlemen. I thought of you as people whose lives I heldin my hand. How was it possible to forget you in my trouble? It is yourface that I brought back with me on board my brig. I don't know why. Ididn't look at you more than at anybody else. It took me all my time tokeep my temper down lest it should burn you all up. I didn't want to berude to you people, but I found it wasn't very easy because threats werethe only argument I had. Was I very offensive, Mrs. Travers?"
She had listened tense and very attentive, almost stern. And it waswithout the slightest change of expression that she said:
"I think that you bore yourself appropriately to the state of life towhich it has pleased God to call you."
"What state?" muttered Lingard to himself. "I am what I am. They call meRajah Laut, King Tom, and such like. I think it amused you to hear it,but I can tell you it is no joke to have such names fastened on one,even in fun. And those very names have in them something which makes allthis affair here no small matter to anybody."
She stood before him with a set, severe face.--"Did you call me outin this alarming manner only to quarrel with me?"--"No, but why do youchoose this time to tell me that my coming for help to you was nothingbut impudence in your sight? Well, I beg your pardon for intrudingon your dignity."--"You misunderstood me," said Mrs. Travers, withoutrelaxing for a moment her contemplative severity. "Such a flatteringthing had never happened to me before and it will never happen to meagain. But believe me, King Tom, you did me too much honour. Jorgensonis perfectly right in being angry with you for having taken a woman intow."--"He didn't mean to be rude," protested Lingard, earnestly. Mrs.Travers didn't even smile at this intrusion of a point of manners intothe atmosphere of anguish and suspense that seemed always to arisebetween her and this man who, sitting on the sea-chest, had raised hiseyes to her with an air of extreme candour and seemed unable to takethem off again. She continued to look at him sternly by a tremendouseffort of will.
"How changed you are," he murmured.
He was lost in the depths of the simplest wonder. She appeared to himvengeful and as if turned forever into stone before his bewilderedremorse. Forever. Suddenly Mrs. Travers looked round and sat down in thechair. Her strength failed her but she remained austere with her handsresting on the arms of her seat. Lingard sighed deeply and droppedhis eyes. She did not dare relax her muscles for fear of breaking downaltogether and betraying a reckless impulse which lurked at the bottomof her dismay, to seize the head of d'Alcacer's Man of Fate, press itto her breast once, fling it far away, and vanish herself, vanish outof life like a wraith. The Man of Fate sat silent and bowed, yet witha suggestion of strength in his dejection. "If I don't speak," Mrs.Travers said to herself, with great inward calmness, "I shall burst intotears." She said aloud, "What could have happened? What have you draggedme in here for? Why don't you tell me your news?"
"I thought you didn't want to hear. I believe you really don't want to.What is all this to you? I believe that you don't care anything aboutwhat I feel, about what I do and how I end. I verily believe that youdon't care how you end yourself. I believe you never cared for your ownor anybody's feelings. I don't think it is because you are hard, I thinkit is because you don't know, and don't want to know, and are angry withlife."
He flourished an arm recklessly, and Mrs. Travers noticed for the firsttime that he held a sheet of paper in his hand.
"Is that your news there?" she asked, significantly. "It's difficult toimagine that in this wilderness writing can have any significance. Andwho on earth here could send you news on paper? Will you let me see it?Could I understand it? Is it in English? Come, King Tom, don't look atme in this awful way."
She got up suddenly, not in indignation, but as if at the end of herendurance. The jewelled clasps, the gold embroideries, gleamed elusivelyamongst the folds of her draperies which emitted a mysterious rustle.
"I can't stand this," she cried. "I can't stand being looked at likethis. No woman could stand it. No woman has ever been looked at likethis. What can you see? Hatred I could understand. What is it you thinkme capable of?"
"You are very extraordinary," murmured Lingard, who had regained hisself-possession before that outburst.
"Very well, and you are extraordinary, too. That's understood--here weare both under that curse and having to face together whatever may turnup. But who on earth could have sent you this writing?"
"Who?" repeated Lingard. "Why, that young fellow that blundered on mybrig in the dark, bringing a boatload of trouble alongside on thatquiet night in Carimata Straits. The darkest night I have ever known. Anaccursed night."
Mrs. Travers bit her lip, waited a little, then asked quietly:
"What difficulty has he got into now?"
"Difficulty!" cried Lingard. "He is immensely pleased with himself, theyoung fool. You know, when you sent him to talk to me that evening youleft the yacht, he came with a loaded pistol in his pocket. And now hehas gone and done it."
"Done it?" repeated Mrs. Travers blankly. "Done what?"
She snatched from Lingard's unresisting palm the sheet of paper. Whileshe was smoothing it Lingard moved round and stood close at her elbow.She ran quickly over the first lines, then her eyes steadied. At the endshe drew a quick breath and looked up at Lingard. Their faces had neverbeen so close together before and Mrs. Travers had a surprising secondof a perfectly new sensation. She looked away.--"Do you understand whatthis news means?" he murmured. Mrs. Travers let her hand fall by herside. "Yes," she said in a low tone. "The compact is broken."
Carter had begun his letter without any preliminaries:
You cleared out in the middle of the night and took the lady away withyou. You left me no proper orders. But as a sailorman I looked uponmyself as left in charge of two ships while within half a mile on thatsandbank there were more than a hundred piratical cut-throats watchingme as closely as so many tigers about to leap. Days went by without aword of you or the lady. To leave the ships outside and go inland tolook for you was not to be thought of with all those pirates withinspringing distance. Put yourself in my place. Can't you imagine myanxiety, my sleepless nights? Each night worse than the night before.And still no word from you. I couldn't sit still and worry my head offabout things I couldn't understand. I am a sailorman. My first duty wasto the ships. I had to put an end to this impossible situation and Ihope you will agree that I have done it in a seamanlike way. One mistymorning I moved the brig nearer the sandbank and directly the mistcleare
d I opened fire on the praus of those savages which were anchoredin the channel. We aimed wide at first to give those vagabonds thatwere on board a chance to clear out and join their friends camped on thesands. I didn't want to kill people. Then we got the long gun to bearand in about an hour we had the bottom knocked out of the two praus. Thesavages on the bank howled and screamed at every shot. They are mightyangry but I don't care for their anger now, for by sinking their prausI have made them as harmless as a flock of lambs. They needn't starve ontheir sandbank because they have two or three dugouts hauled up onthe sand and they may ferry themselves and their women to the mainlandwhenever they like.
I fancy I have acted as a seaman and as a seaman I intend to go onacting. Now I have made the ships safe I shall set about without loss oftime trying to get the yacht off the mud. When that's done I shall armthe boats and proceed inshore to look for you and the yacht's gentry,and shan't rest till I know whether any or all of you are above theearth yet.
I hope these words will reach you. Just as we had done the businessof those praus the man you sent off that night in Carimata to stop ourchief officer came sailing in from the west with our first gig intow and the boat's crew all well. Your serang tells me he is a mosttrustworthy messenger and that his name is Jaffir. He seems only tooanxious to try to get to you as soon as possible. I repeat, ships andmen have been made safe and I don't mean to give you up dead or alive.
"You are quick in taking the point," said Lingard in a dull voice, whileMrs. Travers, with the sheet of paper gripped in her hand, looked intohis face with anxious eyes. "He has been smart and no mistake."
"He didn't know," murmured Mrs. Travers.
"No, he didn't know. But could I take everybody into my confidence?"protested Lingard in the same low tone. "And yet who else could I trust?It seemed to me that he must have understood without being told. But heis too young. He may well be proud according to his lights. He has donethat job outside very smartly--damn his smartness! And here we are withall our lives depending on my word--which is broken now, Mrs. Travers.It is broken."
Mrs. Travers nodded at him slightly.
"They would sooner have expected to see the sun and the moon fall out ofthe sky," Lingard continued with repressed fire. Next moment it seemedto have gone out of him and Mrs. Travers heard him mutter a disconnectedphrase. . . . "The world down about my ears."
"What will you do?" she whispered.
"What will I do?" repeated Lingard, gently. "Oh, yes--do. Mrs. Travers,do you see that I am nothing now? Just nothing."
He had lost himself in the contemplation of her face turned to him withan expression of awed curiosity. The shock of the world coming downabout his ears in consequence of Carter's smartness was so terrific thatit had dulled his sensibilities in the manner of a great pain or of agreat catastrophe. What was there to look at but that woman's face, ina world which had lost its consistency, its shape, and its promises in amoment?
Mrs. Travers looked away. She understood that she had put to Lingard animpossible question. What was presenting itself to her as a problem wasto that man a crisis of feeling. Obviously Carter's action had brokenthe compact entered into with Daman, and she was intelligent enough tounderstand that it was the sort of thing that could not be explainedaway. It wasn't horror that she felt, but a sort of consternation,something like the discomfiture of people who have just missed theirtrain. It was only more intense. The real dismay had yet to make its wayinto her comprehension. To Lingard it was a blow struck straight at hisheart.
He was not angry with Carter. The fellow had acted like a seaman.Carter's concern was for the ships. In this fatality Carter was a mereincident. The real cause of the disaster was somewhere else, was other,and more remote. And at the same time Lingard could not defend himselffrom a feeling that it was in himself, too, somewhere in the unexploreddepths of his nature, something fatal and unavoidable. He muttered tohimself:
"No. I am not a lucky man."
This was but a feeble expression of the discovery of the truth thatsuddenly had come home to him as if driven into his breast by arevealing power which had decided that this was to be the end of hisfling. But he was not the man to give himself up to the examinationof his own sensations. His natural impulse was to grapple with thecircumstances and that was what he was trying to do; but he missed nowthat sense of mastery which is half the battle. Conflict of some sortwas the very essence of his life. But this was something he had neverknown before. This was a conflict within himself. He had to faceunsuspected powers, foes that he could not go out to meet at the gate.They were within, as though he had been betrayed by somebody, by somesecret enemy. He was ready to look round for that subtle traitor. Asort of blankness fell on his mind and he suddenly thought: "Why! It'smyself."
Immediately afterward he had a clear, merciless recollection of Hassimand Immada. He saw them far off beyond the forests. Oh, yes, theyexisted--within his breast!
"That was a night!" he muttered, looking straight at Mrs. Travers. Hehad been looking at her all the time. His glance had held her under aspell, but for a whole interminable minute he had not been aware of herat all. At the murmur of his words she made a slight movement and he sawher again.--"What night?" she whispered, timidly, like an intruder. Shewas astonished to see him smile.--"Not like this one," he said. "Youmade me notice how quiet and still it was. Yes. Listen how still it is."
Both moved their heads slightly and seemed to lend an ear. There was nota murmur, sigh, rustle, splash, or footfall. No whispers, no tremors,not a sound of any kind. They might have been alone on board the Emma,abandoned even by the ghost of Captain Jorgenson departed to rejointhe Barque Wild Rose on the shore of the Cimmerian sea.--"It's like thestillness of the end," said Mrs. Travers in a low, equable voice.--"Yes,but that, too, is false," said Lingard in the same tone.--"I don'tunderstand," Mrs. Travers began, hurriedly, after a short silence. "Butdon't use that word. Don't use it, King Tom! It frightens me by its meresound."
Lingard made no sign. His thoughts were back with Hassim and Immada. Theyoung chief and his sister had gone up country on a voluntary missionto persuade Belarab to return to his stockade and to take up again thedirection of affairs. They carried urgent messages from Lingard, who forBelarab was the very embodiment of truth and force, that unquestionedforce which had permitted Belarab to indulge in all his melancholyhesitations. But those two young people had also some personal prestige.They were Lingard's heart's friends. They were like his children. Butbeside that, their high birth, their warlike story, their wanderings,adventures, and prospects had given them a glamour of their own.