________________________________________________
_ Lingard brought Mrs. Travers away from the yacht, going alone
with her in the little boat. During the bustle of the embarkment,
and till the last of the crew had left the schooner, he had
remained towering and silent by her side. It was only when the
murmuring and uneasy voices of the sailors going away in the
boats had been completely lost in the distance that his voice was
heard, grave in the silence, pronouncing the words --"Follow me."
She followed him; their footsteps rang hollow and loud on the
empty deck. At the bottom of the steps he turned round and said
very low:
"Take care."
He got into the boat and held on. It seemed to him that she was
intimidated by the darkness. She felt her arm gripped
firmly--"I've got you," he said. She stepped in, headlong,
trusting herself blindly to his grip, and sank on the stern seat
catching her breath a little. She heard a slight splash, and the
indistinct side of the deserted yacht melted suddenly into the
body of the night.
Rowing, he faced her, a hooded and cloaked shape, and above her
head he had before his eyes the gleam of the stern lantern
expiring slowly on the abandoned vessel. When it went out without
a warning flicker he could see nothing of the stranded yacht's
outline. She had vanished utterly like a dream; and the
occurrences of the last twenty-four hours seemed also to be a
part of a vanished dream. The hooded and cloaked figure was part
of it, too. It spoke not; it moved not; it would vanish
presently. Lingard tried to remember Mrs. Travers' features, even
as she sat within two feet of him in the boat. He seemed to have
taken from that vanished schooner not a woman but a memory--the
tormenting recollection of a human being he would see no more.
At every stroke of the short sculls Mrs. Travers felt the boat
leap forward with her. Lingard, to keep his direction, had to
look over his shoulder frequently--"You will be safe in the
brig," he said. She was silent. A dream! A dream! He lay back
vigorously; the water slapped loudly against the blunt bows. The
ruddy glow thrown afar by the flares was reflected deep within
the hood. The dream had a pale visage, the memory had living
eyes.
"I had to come for you myself," he said.
"I expected it of you." These were the first words he had heard
her say since they had met for the third time.
"And I swore--before you, too--that I would never put my foot on
board your craft."
"It was good of you to--" she began.
"I forgot somehow," he said, simply.
"I expected it of you," she repeated. He gave three quick strokes
before he asked very gently:
"What more do you expect?"
"Everything," she said. He was rounding then the stern of the
brig and had to look away. Then he turned to her.
"And you trust me to--" he exclaimed.
"I would like to trust you," she interrupted, "because--"
Above them a startled voice cried in Malay, "Captain coming." The
strange sound silenced her. Lingard laid in his sculls and she
saw herself gliding under the high side of the brig. A dark,
staring face appeared very near her eyes, black fingers caught
the gunwale of the boat. She stood up swaying. "Take care," said
Lingard again, but this time, in the light, did not offer to help
her. She went up alone and he followed her over the rail.
The quarter-deck was thronged by men of two races. Lingard and
Mrs. Travers crossed it rapidly between the groups that moved out
of the way on their passage. Lingard threw open the cabin door
for her, but remained on deck to inquire about his boats. They
had returned while he was on board the yacht, and the two men in
charge of them came aft to make their reports. The boat sent
north had seen nothing. The boat which had been directed to
explore the banks and islets to the south had actually been in
sight of Daman's praus. The man in charge reported that several
fires were burning on the shore, the crews of the two praus being
encamped on a sandbank. Cooking was going on. They had been near
enough to hear the voices. There was a man keeping watch on the
ridge; they knew this because they heard him shouting to the
people below, by the fires. Lingard wanted to know how they had
managed to remain unseen. "The night was our hiding place,"
answered the man in his deep growling voice. He knew nothing of
any white men being in Daman's camp. Why should there be? Rajah
Hassim and the Lady, his sister, appeared unexpectedly near his
boat in their canoe. Rajah Hassim had ordered him then in
whispers to go back to the brig at once, and tell Tuan what he
had observed. Rajah Hassim said also that he would return to the
brig with more news very soon. He obeyed because the Rajah was to
him a person of authority, "having the perfect knowledge of
Tuan's mind as we all know."--"Enough," cried Lingard, suddenly.
The man looked up heavily for a moment, and retreated forward
without another word. Lingard followed him with irritated eyes. A
new power had come into the world, had possessed itself of human
speech, had imparted to it a sinister irony of allusion. To be
told that someone had "a perfect knowledge of his mind" startled
him and made him wince. It made him aware that now he did not
know his mind himself--that it seemed impossible for him ever to
regain that knowledge. And the new power not only had cast its
spell upon the words he had to hear, but also upon the facts that
assailed him, upon the people he saw, upon the thoughts he had to
guide, upon the feelings he had to bear. They remained what they
had ever been--the visible surface of life open in the sun to the
conquering tread of an unfettered will. Yesterday they could have
been discerned clearly, mastered and despised; but now another
power had come into the world, and had cast over them all the
wavering gloom of a dark and inscrutable purpose. _
Read next: PART IV. THE GIFT OF THE SHALLOWS: CHAPTER II
Read previous: PART III. THE CAPTURE: CHAPTER X
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