________________________________________________
_ D'Alcacer sat down on the bench again. "I wonder what she knows,"
he thought, "and I wonder what I have done." He wondered also how
far he had been sincere and how far affected by a very natural
aversion from being murdered obscurely by ferocious Moors with
all the circumstances of barbarity. It was a very naked death to
come upon one suddenly. It was robbed of all helpful illusions,
such as the free will of a suicide, the heroism of a warrior, or
the exaltation of a martyr. "Hadn't I better make some sort of
fight of it?" he debated with himself. He saw himself rushing at
the naked spears without any enthusiasm. Or wouldn't it be better
to go forth to meet his doom (somewhere outside the stockade on
that horrible beach) with calm dignity. "Pah! I shall be probably
speared through the back in the beastliest possible fashion," he
thought with an inward shudder. It was certainly not a shudder of
fear, for Mr. d'Alcacer attached no high value to life. It was a
shudder of disgust because Mr. d'Alcacer was a civilized man and
though he had no illusions about civilization he could not but
admit the superiority of its methods. It offered to one a certain
refinement of form, a comeliness of proceedings and definite
safeguards against deadly surprises. "How idle all this is," he
thought, finally. His next thought was that women were very
resourceful. It was true, he went on meditating with unwonted
cynicism, that strictly speaking they had only one resource but,
generally, it served--it served.
He was surprised by his supremely shameless bitterness at this
juncture. It was so uncalled for. This situation was too
complicated to be entrusted to a cynical or shameless hope. There
was nothing to trust to. At this moment of his meditation he
became aware of Lingard's approach. He raised his head eagerly.
D'Alcacer was not indifferent to his fate and even to Mr.
Travers' fate. He would fain learn. . . . But one look at
Lingard's face was enough. "It's no use asking him anything," he
said to himself, "for he cares for nothing just now."
Lingard sat down heavily on the other end of the bench, and
d'Alcacer, looking at his profile, confessed to himself that this
was the most masculinely good-looking face he had ever seen in
his life. It was an expressive face, too, but its present
expression was also beyond d'Alcacer's past experience. At the
same time its quietness set up a barrier against common
curiosities and even common fears. No, it was no use asking him
anything. Yet something should be said to break the spell, to
call down again this man to the earth. But it was Lingard who
spoke first. "Where has Mrs. Travers gone?"
"She has gone . . . where naturally she would be anxious to go
first of all since she has managed to come to us," answered
d'Alcacer, wording his answer with the utmost regard for the
delicacy of the situation.
The stillness of Lingard seemed to have grown even more
impressive. He spoke again.
"I wonder what those two can have to say to each other."
He might have been asking that of the whole darkened part of the
globe, but it was d'Alcacer who answered in his courteous tones.
"Would it surprise you very much, Captain Lingard, if I were to
tell you that those two people are quite fit to understand each
other thoroughly? Yes? It surprises you! Well, I assure you that
seven thousand miles from here nobody would wonder."
"I think I understand," said Lingard, "but don't you know the man
is light-headed? A man like that is as good as mad."
"Yes, he had been slightly delirious since seven o'clock," said
d'Alcacer. "But believe me, Captain Lingard," he continued,
earnestly, and obeying a perfectly disinterested impulse, "that
even in his delirium he is far more understandable to her and
better able to understand her than . . . anybody within a hundred
miles from here."
"Ah!" said Lingard without any emotion, "so you don't wonder. You
don't see any reason for wonder."
"No, for, don't you see, I do know."
"What do you know?"
"Men and women, Captain Lingard, which you. . . ."
"I don't know any woman."
"You have spoken the strictest truth there," said d'Alcacer, and
for the first time Lingard turned his head slowly and looked at
his neighbour on the bench.
"Do you think she is as good as mad, too?" asked Lingard in a
startled voice.
D'Alcacer let escape a low exclamation. No, certainly he did not
think so. It was an original notion to suppose that lunatics had
a sort of common logic which made them understandable to each
other. D'Alcacer tried to make his voice as gentle as possible
while he pursued: "No, Captain Lingard, I believe the woman of
whom we speak is and will always remain in the fullest possession
of herself."
Lingard, leaning back, clasped his hands round his knees. He
seemed not to be listening and d'Alcacer, pulling a cigarette
case out of his pocket, looked for a long time at the three
cigarettes it contained. It was the last of the provision he had
on him when captured. D'Alcacer had put himself on the strictest
allowance. A cigarette was only to be lighted on special
occasions; and now there were only three left and they had to be
made to last till the end of life. They calmed, they soothed,
they gave an attitude. And only three left! One had to be kept
for the morning, to be lighted before going through the gate of
doom--the gate of Belarab's stockade. A cigarette soothed, it
gave an attitude. Was this the fitting occasion for one of the
remaining two? D'Alcacer, a true Latin, was not afraid of a
little introspection. In the pause he descended into the
innermost depths of his being, then glanced up at the night sky.
Sportsman, traveller, he had often looked up at the stars before
to see how time went. It was going very slowly. He took out a
cigarette, snapped-to the case, bent down to the embers. Then he
sat up and blew out a thin cloud of smoke. The man by his side
looked with his bowed head and clasped knee like a masculine
rendering of mournful meditation. Such attitudes are met with
sometimes on the sculptures of ancient tombs. D'Alcacer began to
speak:
"She is a representative woman and yet one of those of whom there
are but very few at any time in the world. Not that they are very
rare but that there is but little room on top. They are the
iridescent gleams on a hard and dark surface. For the world is
hard, Captain Lingard, it is hard, both in what it will remember
and in what it will forget. It is for such women that people toil
on the ground and underground and artists of all sorts invoke
their inspiration."
Lingard seemed not to have heard a word. His chin rested on his
breast. D'Alcacer appraised the remaining length of his cigarette
and went on in an equable tone through which pierced a certain
sadness:
"No, there are not many of them. And yet they are all. They
decorate our life for us. They are the gracious figures on the
drab wall which lies on this side of our common grave. They lead
a sort of ritual dance, that most of us have agreed to take
seriously. It is a very binding agreement with which sincerity
and good faith and honour have nothing to do. Very binding. Woe
to him or her who breaks it. Directly they leave the pageant they
get lost."
Lingard turned his head sharply and discovered d'Alcacer looking
at him with profound attention.
"They get lost in a maze," continued d'Alcacer, quietly. "They
wander in it lamenting over themselves. I would shudder at that
fate for anything I loved. Do you know, Captain Lingard, how
people lost in a maze end?" he went on holding Lingard by a
steadfast stare. "No? . . . I will tell you then. They end by
hating their very selves, and they die in disillusion and
despair."
As if afraid of the force of his words d'Alcacer laid a soothing
hand lightly on Lingard's shoulder. But Lingard continued to look
into the embers at his feet and remained insensible to the
friendly touch. Yet d'Alcacer could not imagine that he had not
been heard. He folded his arms on his breast.
"I don't know why I have been telling you all this," he said,
apologetically. "I hope I have not been intruding on your
thoughts."
"I can think of nothing," Lingard declared, unexpectedly. "I only
know that your voice was friendly; and for the rest--"
"One must get through a night like this somehow," said d'Alcacer.
"The very stars seem to lag on their way. It's a common belief
that a drowning man is irresistibly compelled to review his past
experience. Just now I feel quite out of my depth, and whatever I
have said has come from my experience. I am sure you will forgive
me. All that it amounts to is this: that it is natural for us to
cry for the moon but it would be very fatal to have our cries
heard. For what could any one of us do with the moon if it were
given to him? I am speaking now of us--common mortals."
It was not immediately after d'Alcacer had ceased speaking but
only after a moment that Lingard unclasped his fingers, got up,
and walked away. D'Alcacer followed with a glance of quiet
interest the big, shadowy form till it vanished in the direction
of an enormous forest tree left in the middle of the stockade.
The deepest shade of the night was spread over the ground of
Belarab's fortified courtyard. The very embers of the fires had
turned black, showing only here and there a mere spark; and the
forms of the prone sleepers could hardly be distinguished from
the hard ground on which they rested, with their arms lying
beside them on the mats. Presently Mrs. Travers appeared quite
close to d'Alcacer, who rose instantly.
"Martin is asleep," said Mrs. Travers in a tone that seemed to
have borrowed something of the mystery and quietness of the
night.
"All the world's asleep," observed d'Alcacer, so low that Mrs.
Travers barely caught the words, "Except you and me, and one
other who has left me to wander about in the night."
"Was he with you? Where has he gone?"
"Where it's darkest I should think," answered d'Alcacer,
secretly. "It's no use going to look for him; but if you keep
perfectly still and hold your breath you may presently hear his
footsteps."
"What did he tell you?" breathed out Mrs. Travers.
"I didn't ask him anything. I only know that something has
happened which has robbed him of his power of thinking . . .
Hadn't I better go to the hut? Don Martin ought to have someone
with him when he wakes up." Mrs. Travers remained perfectly still
and even now and then held her breath with a vague fear of
hearing those footsteps wandering in the dark. D'Alcacer had
disappeared. Again Mrs. Travers held her breath. No. Nothing. Not
a sound. Only the night to her eyes seemed to have grown darker.
Was that a footstep? "Where could I hide myself?" she thought.
But she didn't move.
After leaving d'Alcacer, Lingard threading his way between the
fires found himself under the big tree, the same tree against
which Daman had been leaning on the day of the great talk when
the white prisoners had been surrendered to Lingard's keeping on
definite conditions. Lingard passed through the deep obscurity
made by the outspread boughs of the only witness left there of a
past that for endless ages had seen no mankind on this shore
defended by the Shallows, around this lagoon overshadowed by the
jungle. In the calm night the old giant, without shudders or
murmurs in its enormous limbs, saw the restless man drift through
the black shade into the starlight.
In that distant part of the courtyard there were only a few
sentries who, themselves invisible, saw Lingard's white figure
pace to and fro endlessly. They knew well who that was. It was
the great white man. A very great man. A very rich man. A
possessor of fire-arms, who could dispense valuable gifts and
deal deadly blows, the friend of their Ruler, the enemy of his
enemies, known to them for years and always mysterious. At their
posts, flattened against the stakes near convenient loopholes,
they cast backward glances and exchanged faint whispers from time
to time.
Lingard might have thought himself alone. He had lost touch with
the world. What he had said to d'Alcacer was perfectly true. He
had no thought. He was in the state of a man who, having cast his
eyes through the open gates of Paradise, is rendered insensible
by that moment's vision to all the forms and matters of the
earth; and in the extremity of his emotion ceases even to look
upon himself but as the subject of a sublime experience which
exalts or unfits, sanctifies or damns--he didn't know which.
Every shadowy thought, every passing sensation was like a base
intrusion on that supreme memory. He couldn't bear it.
When he had tried to resume his conversation with Belarab after
Mrs. Travers' arrival he had discovered himself unable to go on.
He had just enough self-control to break off the interview in
measured terms. He pointed out the lateness of the hour, a most
astonishing excuse to people to whom time is nothing and whose
life and activities are not ruled by the clock. Indeed Lingard
hardly knew what he was saying or doing when he went out again
leaving everybody dumb with astonishment at the change in his
aspect and in his behaviour. A suspicious silence reigned for a
long time in Belarab's great audience room till the Chief
dismissed everybody by two quiet words and a slight gesture.
With her chin in her hand in the pose of a sybil trying to read
the future in the glow of dying embers, Mrs. Travers, without
holding her breath, heard quite close to her the footsteps which
she had been listening for with mingled alarm, remorse, and hope.
She didn't change her attitude. The deep red glow lighted her up
dimly, her face, the white hand hanging by her side, her feet in
their sandals. The disturbing footsteps stopped close to her.
"Where have you been all this time?" she asked, without looking
round.
"I don't know," answered Lingard. He was speaking the exact
truth. He didn't know. Ever since he had released that woman from
his arms everything but the vaguest notions had departed from
him. Events, necessities, things--he had lost his grip on them
all. And he didn't care. They were futile and impotent; he had no
patience with them. The offended and astonished Belarab,
d'Alcacer with his kindly touch and friendly voice, the sleeping
men, the men awake, the Settlement full of unrestful life and the
restless Shallows of the coast, were removed from him into an
immensity of pitying contempt. Perhaps they existed. Perhaps all
this waited for him. Well, let all this wait; let everything
wait, till to-morrow or to the end of time, which could now come
at any moment for all he cared--but certainly till to-morrow.
"I only know," he went on with an emphasis that made Mrs. Travers
raise her head, "that wherever I go I shall carry you with
me--against my breast."
Mrs. Travers' fine ear caught the mingled tones of suppressed
exultation and dawning fear, the ardour and the faltering of
those words. She was feeling still the physical truth at the root
of them so strongly that she couldn't help saying in a dreamy
whisper:
"Did you mean to crush the life out of me?"
He answered in the same tone:
"I could not have done it. You are too strong. Was I rough? I
didn't mean to be. I have been often told I didn't know my own
strength. You did not seem able to get through that opening and
so I caught hold of you. You came away in my hands quite easily.
Suddenly I thought to myself, 'now I will make sure.'"
He paused as if his breath had failed him. Mrs. Travers dared not
make the slightest movement. Still in the pose of one in quest of
hidden truth she murmured, "Make sure?"
"Yes. And now I am sure. You are here--here! Before I couldn't
tell."
"Oh, you couldn't tell before," she said.
"No."
"So it was reality that you were seeking."
He repeated as if speaking to himself: "And now I am sure."
Her sandalled foot, all rosy in the glow, felt the warmth of the
embers. The tepid night had enveloped her body; and still under
the impression of his strength she gave herself up to a momentary
feeling of quietude that came about her heart as soft as the
night air penetrated by the feeble clearness of the stars. "This
is a limpid soul," she thought.
"You know I always believed in you," he began again. "You know I
did. Well. I never believed in you so much as I do now, as you
sit there, just as you are, and with hardly enough light to make
you out by."
It occurred to her that she had never heard a voice she liked so
well--except one. But that had been a great actor's voice;
whereas this man was nothing in the world but his very own self.
He persuaded, he moved, he disturbed, he soothed by his inherent
truth. He had wanted to make sure and he had made sure
apparently; and too weary to resist the waywardness of her
thoughts Mrs. Travers reflected with a sort of amusement that
apparently he had not been disappointed. She thought, "He
believes in me. What amazing words. Of all the people that might
have believed in me I had to find this one here. He believes in
me more than in himself." A gust of sudden remorse tore her out
from her quietness, made her cry out to him:
"Captain Lingard, we forget how we have met, we forget what is
going on. We mustn't. I won't say that you placed your belief
wrongly but I have to confess something to you. I must tell you
how I came here to-night. Jorgenson . . ."
He interrupted her forcibly but without raising his voice.
"Jorgenson. Who's Jorgenson? You came to me because you couldn't
help yourself."
This took her breath away. "But I must tell you. There is
something in my coming which is not clear to me."
"You can tell me nothing that I don't know already," he said in a
pleading tone. "Say nothing. Sit still. Time enough to-morrow.
To-morrow! The night is drawing to an end and I care for nothing
in the world but you. Let me be. Give me the rest that is in
you."
She had never heard such accents on his lips and she felt for him
a great and tender pity. Why not humour this mood in which he
wanted to preserve the moments that would never come to him again
on this earth? She hesitated in silence. She saw him stir in the
darkness as if he could not make up his mind to sit down on the
bench. But suddenly he scattered the embers with his foot and
sank on the ground against her feet, and she was not startled in
the least to feel the weight of his head on her knee. Mrs.
Travers was not startled but she felt profoundly moved. Why
should she torment him with all those questions of freedom and
captivity, of violence and intrigue, of life and death? He was
not in a state to be told anything and it seemed to her that she
did not want to speak, that in the greatness of her compassion
she simply could not speak. All she could do for him was to rest
her hand lightly on his head and respond silently to the slight
movement she felt, sigh or sob, but a movement which suddenly
immobilized her in an anxious emotion.
About the same time on the other side of the lagoon Jorgenson,
raising his eyes, noted the stars and said to himself that the
night would not last long now. He wished for daylight. He hoped
that Lingard had already done something. The blaze in Tengga's
compound had been re-lighted. Tom's power was unbounded,
practically unbounded. And he was invulnerable.
Jorgenson let his old eyes wander amongst the gleams and shadows
of the great sheet of water between him and that hostile shore
and fancied he could detect a floating shadow having the
characteristic shape of a man in a small canoe.
"O! Ya! Man!" he hailed. "What do you want?" Other eyes, too, had
detected that shadow. Low murmurs arose on the deck of the Emma.
"If you don't speak at once I shall fire," shouted Jorgenson,
fiercely.
"No, white man," returned the floating shape in a solemn drawl.
"I am the bearer of friendly words. A chief's words. I come from
Tengga."
"There was a bullet that came on board not a long time ago--also
from Tengga," said Jorgenson.
"That was an accident," protested the voice from the lagoon.
"What else could it be? Is there war between you and Tengga? No,
no, O white man! All Tengga desires is a long talk. He has sent
me to ask you to come ashore."
At these words Jorgenson's heart sank a little. This invitation
meant that Lingard had made no move. Was Tom asleep or altogether
mad?
"The talk would be of peace," declared impressively the shadow
which had drifted much closer to the hulk now.
"It isn't for me to talk with great chiefs," Jorgenson returned,
cautiously.
"But Tengga is a friend," argued the nocturnal messenger. "And by
that fire there are other friends--your friends, the Rajah Hassim
and the lady Immada, who send you their greetings and who expect
their eyes to rest on you before sunrise."
"That's a lie," remarked Jorgenson, perfunctorily, and fell into
thought, while the shadowy bearer of words preserved a
scandalized silence, though, of course, he had not expected to be
believed for a moment. But one could never tell what a white man
would believe. He had wanted to produce the impression that
Hassim and Immada were the honoured guests of Tengga. It occurred
to him suddenly that perhaps Jorgenson didn't know anything of
the capture. And he persisted.
"My words are all true, Tuan. The Rajah of Wajo and his sister
are with my master. I left them sitting by the fire on Tengga's
right hand. Will you come ashore to be welcomed amongst friends?"
Jorgenson had been reflecting profoundly. His object was to gain
as much time as possible for Lingard's interference which indeed
could not fail to be effective. But he had not the slightest wish
to entrust himself to Tengga's friendliness. Not that he minded
the risk; but he did not see the use of taking it.
"No!" he said, "I can't go ashore. We white men have ways of our
own and I am chief of this hulk. And my chief is the Rajah Laut,
a white man like myself.
All the words that matter are in him and if Tengga is such a
great chief let him ask the Rajah Laut for a talk. Yes, that's
the proper thing for Tengga to do if he is such a great chief as
he says."
"The Rajah Laut has made his choice. He dwells with Belarab, and
with the white people who are huddled together like trapped deer
in Belarab's stockade. Why shouldn't you meantime go over where
everything is lighted up and open and talk in friendship with
Tengga's friends, whose hearts have been made sick by many
doubts; Rajah Hassim and the lady Immada and Daman, the chief of
the men of the sea, who do not know now whom they can trust
unless it be you, Tuan, the keeper of much wealth?"
The diplomatist in the small dugout paused for a moment to give
special weight to the final argument:
"Which you have no means to defend. We know how many armed men
there are with you."
"They are great fighters," Jorgenson observed, unconcernedly,
spreading his elbows on the rail and looking over at the floating
black patch of characteristic shape whence proceeded the voice of
the wily envoy of Tengga. "Each man of them is worth ten of such
as you can find in the Settlement."
"Yes, by Allah. Even worth twenty of these common people. Indeed,
you have enough with you to make a great fight but not enough for
victory."
"God alone gives victory," said suddenly the voice of Jaffir,
who, very still at Jorgenson's elbow, had been listening to the
conversation.
"Very true," was the answer in an extremely conventional tone.
"Will you come ashore, O white man; and be the leader of chiefs?"
"I have been that before," said Jorgenson, with great dignity,
"and now all I want is peace. But I won't come ashore amongst
people whose minds are so much troubled, till Rajah Hassim and
his sister return on board this ship and tell me the tale of
their new friendship with Tengga."
His heart was sinking with every minute, the very air was growing
heavier with the sense of oncoming disaster, on that night that
was neither war nor peace and whose only voice was the voice of
Tengga's envoy, insinuating in tone though menacing in words.
"No, that cannot be," said that voice. "But, Tuan, verily Tengga
himself is ready to come on board here to talk with you. He is
very ready to come and indeed, Tuan, he means to come on board
here before very long."
"Yes, with fifty war-canoes filled with the ferocious rabble of
the Shore of Refuge," Jaffir was heard commenting, sarcastically,
over the rail; and a sinister muttered "It may be so," ascended
alongside from the black water.
Jorgenson kept silent as if waiting for a supreme inspiration and
suddenly he spoke in his other-world voice: "Tell Tengga from me
that as long as he brings with him Rajah Hassim and the Rajah's
sister, he and his chief men will be welcome on deck here, no
matter how many boats come along with them. For that I do not
care. You may go now."
A profound silence succeeded. It was clear that the envoy was
gone, keeping in the shadow of the shore. Jorgenson turned to
Jaffir.
"Death amongst friends is but a festival," he quoted, mumbling in
his moustache.
"It is, by Allah," assented Jaffir with sombre fervour. _
Read next: PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH: CHAPTER VI
Read previous: PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH: CHAPTER IV
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