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_ For two years, Lingard, who had thrown himself body and soul into
the great enterprise, had lived in the long intoxication of
slowly preparing success. No thought of failure had crossed his
mind, and no price appeared too heavy to pay for such a
magnificent achievement. It was nothing less than bringing Hassim
triumphantly back to that country seen once at night under the
low clouds and in the incessant tumult of thunder. When at the
conclusion of some long talk with Hassim, who for the twentieth
time perhaps had related the story of his wrongs and his
struggle, he lifted his big arm and shaking his fist above his
head, shouted: "We will stir them up. We will wake up the
country!" he was, without knowing it in the least, making a
complete confession of the idealism hidden under the simplicity
of his strength. He would wake up the country! That was the
fundamental and unconscious emotion on which were engrafted his
need of action, the primitive sense of what was due to justice,
to gratitude, to friendship, the sentimental pity for the hard
lot of Immada--poor child--the proud conviction that of all the
men in the world, in his world, he alone had the means and the
pluck "to lift up the big end" of such an adventure.
Money was wanted and men were wanted, and he had obtained enough
of both in two years from that day when, pistols in his belt and
a cabbage-leaf hat on head, he had unexpectedly, and at early
dawn, confronted in perfect silence that mysterious Belarab, who
himself was for a moment too astounded for speech at the sight of
a white face.
The sun had not yet cleared the forests of the interior, but a
sky already full of light arched over a dark oval lagoon, over
wide fields as yet full of shadows, that seemed slowly changing
into the whiteness of the morning mist. There were huts, fences,
palisades, big houses that, erected on lofty piles, were seen
above the tops of clustered fruit trees, as if suspended in the
air.
Such was the aspect of Belarab's settlement when Lingard set his
eyes on it for the first time. There were all these things, a
great number of faces at the back of the spare and muffled-up
figure confronting him, and in the swiftly increasing light a
complete stillness that made the murmur of the word "Marhaba"
(welcome), pronounced at last by the chief, perfectly audible to
every one of his followers. The bodyguards who stood about him in
black skull-caps and with long-shafted lances, preserved an
impassive aspect. Across open spaces men could be seen running to
the waterside. A group of women standing on a low knoll gazed
intently, and nothing of them but the heads showed above the
unstirring stalks of a maize field. Suddenly within a cluster of
empty huts near by the voice of an invisible hag was heard
scolding with shrill fury an invisible young girl:
"Strangers! You want to see the strangers? O devoid of all
decency! Must I so lame and old husk the rice alone? May evil
befall thee and the strangers! May they never find favour! May
they be pursued with swords! I am old. I am old. There is no good
in strangers! O girl! May they burn."
"Welcome," repeated Belarab, gravely, and looking straight into
Lingard's eyes.
Lingard spent six days that time in Belarab's settlement. Of
these, three were passed in observing each other without a
question being asked or a hint given as to the object in view.
Lingard lounged on the fine mats with which the chief had
furnished a small bamboo house outside a fortified enclosure,
where a white flag with a green border fluttered on a high and
slender pole but still below the walls of long, high-roofed
buildings, raised forty feet or more on hard-wood posts.
Far away the inland forests were tinted a shimmering blue, like
the forests of a dream. On the seaward side the belt of great
trunks and matted undergrowth came to the western shore of the
oval lagoon; and in the pure freshness of the air the groups of
brown houses reflected in the water or seen above the waving
green of the fields, the clumps of palm trees, the fenced-in
plantations, the groves of fruit trees, made up a picture of
sumptuous prosperity.
Above the buildings, the men, the women, the still sheet of water
and the great plain of crops glistening with dew, stretched the
exalted, the miraculous peace of a cloudless sky. And no road
seemed to lead into this country of splendour and stillness. One
could not believe the unquiet sea was so near, with its gifts and
its unending menace. Even during the months of storms, the great
clamour rising from the whitened expanse of the Shallows dwelt
high in the air in a vast murmur, now feeble now stronger, that
seemed to swing back and forth on the wind above the earth
without any one being able to tell whence it came. It was like
the solemn chant of a waterfall swelling and dying away above the
woods, the fields, above the roofs of houses and the heads of
men, above the secret peace of that hidden and flourishing
settlement of vanquished fanatics, fugitives, and outcasts.
Every afternoon Belarab, followed by an escort that stopped
outside the door, entered alone the house of his guest. He gave
the salutation, inquired after his health, conversed about
insignificant things with an inscrutable mien. But all the time
the steadfast gaze of his thoughtful eyes seemed to seek the
truth within that white face. In the cool of the evening, before
the sun had set, they talked together, passing and repassing
between the rugged pillars of the grove near the gate of the
stockade. The escort away in the oblique sunlight, followed with
their eyes the strolling figures appearing and vanishing behind
the trees. Many words were pronounced, but nothing was said that
would disclose the thoughts of the two men. They clasped hands
demonstratively before separating, and the heavy slam of the gate
was followed by the triple thud of the wooden bars dropped into
iron clamps.
On the third night, Lingard was awakened from a light sleep by
the sound of whispering outside. A black shadow obscured the
stars in the doorway, and a man entering suddenly, stood above
his couch while another could be seen squatting--a dark lump on
the threshold of the hut.
"Fear not. I am Belarab," said a cautious voice.
"I was not afraid," whispered Lingard. "It is the man coming in
the dark and without warning who is in danger."
"And did you not come to me without warning? I said 'welcome'--it
was as easy for me to say 'kill him.'"
"You were within reach of my arm. We would have died together,"
retorted Lingard, quietly.
The other clicked his tongue twice, and his indistinct shape
seemed to sink half-way through the floor.
"It was not written thus before we were born," he said, sitting
cross-legged near the mats, and in a deadened voice. "Therefore
you are my guest. Let the talk between us be straight like the
shaft of a spear and shorter than the remainder of this night.
What do you want?"
"First, your long life," answered Lingard, leaning forward toward
the gleam of a pair of eyes, "and then--your help." _
Read next: PART II. THE SHORE OF REFUGE: CHAPTER VII
Read previous: PART II. THE SHORE OF REFUGE: CHAPTER V
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