________________________________________________
_ Thirty-six hours later Carter, alone with Lingard in the cabin of
the brig, could almost feel during a pause in his talk the
oppressive, the breathless peace of the Shallows awaiting another
sunset.
"I never expected to see any of you alive," Carter began in his
easy tone, but with much less carelessness in his bearing as
though his days of responsibility amongst the Shoals of the Shore
of Refuge had matured his view of the external world and of his
own place therein.
"Of course not," muttered Lingard.
The listlessness of that man whom he had always seen acting under
the stress of a secret passion seemed perfectly appalling to
Carter's youthful and deliberate energy. Ever since he had found
himself again face to face with Lingard he had tried to conceal
the shocking impression with a delicacy which owed nothing to
training but was as intuitive as a child's.
While justifying to Lingard his manner of dealing with the
situation on the Shore of Refuge, he could not for the life of
him help asking himself what was this new mystery. He was also
young enough to long for a word of commendation.
"Come, Captain," he argued; "how would you have liked to come out
and find nothing but two half-burnt wrecks stuck on the
sands--perhaps?"
He waited for a moment, then in sheer compassion turned away his
eyes from that fixed gaze, from that harassed face with sunk
cheeks, from that figure of indomitable strength robbed of its
fire. He said to himself: "He doesn't hear me," and raised his
voice without altering its self-contained tone:
"I was below yesterday morning when we felt the shock, but the
noise came to us only as a deep rumble. I made one jump for the
companion but that precious Shaw was before me yelling,
'Earthquake! Earthquake!' and I am hanged if he didn't miss his
footing and land down on his head at the bottom of the stairs. I
had to stop to pick him up but I got on deck in time to see a
mighty black cloud that seemed almost solid pop up from behind
the forest like a balloon. It stayed there for quite a long time.
Some of our Calashes on deck swore to me that they had seen a red
flash above the tree-tops. But that's hard to believe. I guessed
at once that something had blown up on shore. My first thought
was that I would never see you any more and I made up my mind at
once to find out all the truth you have been keeping away from
me. No, sir! Don't you make a mistake! I wasn't going to give you
up, dead or alive."
He looked hard at Lingard while saying these words and saw the
first sign of animation pass over that ravaged face. He saw even
its lips move slightly; but there was no sound, and Carter looked
away again.
"Perhaps you would have done better by telling me everything; but
you left me behind on my own to be your man here. I put my hand
to the work I could see before me. I am a sailor. There were two
ships to look after. And here they are both for you, fit to go or
to stay, to fight or to run, as you choose." He watched with
bated breath the effort Lingard had to make to utter the two
words of the desired commendation:
"Well done!"
"And I am your man still," Carter added, impulsively, and
hastened to look away from Lingard, who had tried to smile at him
and had failed. Carter didn't know what to do next, remain in the
cabin or leave that unsupported strong man to himself. With a
shyness completely foreign to his character and which he could
not understand himself, he suggested in an engaging murmur and
with an embarrassed assumption of his right to give advice:
"Why not lie down for a bit, sir? I can attend to anything that
may turn up. You seem done up, sir."
He was facing Lingard, who stood on the other side of the table
in a leaning forward attitude propped up on rigid arms and stared
fixedly at him--perhaps? Carter felt on the verge of despair.
This couldn't last. He was relieved to see Lingard shake his head
slightly.
"No, Mr. Carter. I think I will go on deck," said the Captain of
the famous brig Lightning, while his eyes roamed all over the
cabin. Carter stood aside at once, but it was some little time
before Lingard made a move.
The sun had sunk already, leaving that evening no trace of its
glory on a sky clear as crystal and on the waters without a
ripple. All colour seemed to have gone out of the world. The
oncoming shadow rose as subtle as a perfume from the black coast
lying athwart the eastern semicircle; and such was the silence
within the horizon that one might have fancied oneself come to
the end of time. Black and toylike in the clear depths and the
final stillness of the evening the brig and the schooner lay
anchored in the middle of the main channel with their heads swung
the same way. Lingard, with his chin on his breast and his arms
folded, moved slowly here and there about the poop. Close and
mute like his shadow, Carter, at his elbow, followed his
movements. He felt an anxious solicitude. . . .
It was a sentiment perfectly new to him. He had never before felt
this sort of solicitude about himself or any other man. His
personality was being developed by new experience, and as he was
very simple he received the initiation with shyness and
self-mistrust. He had noticed with innocent alarm that Lingard
had not looked either at the sky or over the sea, neither at his
own ship nor the schooner astern; not along the decks, not aloft,
not anywhere. He had looked at nothing! And somehow Carter felt
himself more lonely and without support than when he had been
left alone by that man in charge of two ships entangled amongst
the Shallows and environed by some sinister mystery. Since that
man had come back, instead of welcome relief Carter felt his
responsibility rest on his young shoulders with tenfold weight.
His profound conviction was that Lingard should be roused.
"Captain Lingard," he burst out in desperation; "you can't say I
have worried you very much since this morning when I received you
at the side, but I must be told something. What is it going to be
with us? Fight or run?"
Lingard stopped short and now there was no doubt in Carter's mind
that the Captain was looking at him. There was no room for any
doubt before that stern and enquiring gaze. "Aha!" thought
Carter. "This has startled him"; and feeling that his shyness had
departed he pursued his advantage. "For the fact of the matter
is, sir, that, whatever happens, unless I am to be your man you
will have no officer. I had better tell you at once that I have
bundled that respectable, crazy, fat Shaw out of the ship. He was
upsetting all hands. Yesterday I told him to go and get his
dunnage together because I was going to send him aboard the
yacht. He couldn't have made more uproar about it if I had
proposed to chuck him overboard. I warned him that if he didn't
go quietly I would have him tied up like a sheep ready for
slaughter. However, he went down the ladder on his own feet,
shaking his fist at me and promising to have me hanged for a
pirate some day. He can do no harm on board the yacht. And now,
sir, it's for you to give orders and not for me--thank God!"
Lingard turned away, abruptly. Carter didn't budge. After a
moment he heard himself called from the other side of the deck
and obeyed with alacrity.
"What's that story of a man you picked up on the coast last
evening?" asked Lingard in his gentlest tone. "Didn't you tell me
something about it when I came on board?"
"I tried to," said Carter, frankly. "But I soon gave it up. You
didn't seem to pay any attention to what I was saying. I thought
you wanted to be left alone for a bit. What can I know of your
ways, yet, sir? Are you aware, Captain Lingard, that since this
morning I have been down five times at the cabin door to look at
you? There you sat. . . ."
He paused and Lingard said: "You have been five times down in the
cabin?"
"Yes. And the sixth time I made up my mind to make you take some
notice of me. I can't be left without orders. There are two ships
to look after, a lot of things to be done. . . ."
"There is nothing to be done," Lingard interrupted with a mere
murmur but in a tone which made Carter keep silent for a while.
"Even to know that much would have been something to go by," he
ventured at last. "I couldn't let you sit there with the sun
getting pretty low and a long night before us."
"I feel stunned yet," said Lingard, looking Carter straight in
the face, as if to watch the effect of that confession.
"Were you very near that explosion?" asked the young man with
sympathetic curiosity and seeking for some sign on Lingard's
person. But there was nothing. Not a single hair of the Captain's
head seemed to have been singed.
"Near," muttered Lingard. "It might have been my head." He
pressed it with both hands, then let them fall. "What about that
man?" he asked, brusquely. "Where did he come from? . . . I
suppose he is dead now," he added in an envious tone.
"No, sir. He must have as many lives as a cat," answered Carter.
"I will tell you how it was. As I said before I wasn't going to
give you up, dead or alive, so yesterday when the sun went down a
little in the afternoon I had two of our boats manned and pulled
in shore, taking soundings to find a passage if there was one. I
meant to go back and look for you with the brig or without the
brig--but that doesn't matter now. There were three or four
floating logs in sight. One of the Calashes in my boat made out
something red on one of them. I thought it was worth while to go
and see what it was. It was that man's sarong. It had got
entangled among the branches and prevented him rolling off into
the water. I was never so glad, I assure you, as when we found
out that he was still breathing. If we could only nurse him back
to life, I thought, he could perhaps tell me a lot of things. The
log on which he hung had come out of the mouth of the creek and
he couldn't have been more than half a day on it by my
calculation. I had him taken down the main hatchway and put into
a hammock in the 'tween-decks. He only just breathed then, but
some time during the night he came to himself and got out of the
hammock to lie down on a mat. I suppose he was more comfortable
that way. He recovered his speech only this morning and I went
down at once and told you of it, but you took no notice. I told
you also who he was but I don't know whether you heard me or
not."
"I don't remember," said Lingard under his breath.
"They are wonderful, those Malays. This morning he was only half
alive, if that much, and now I understand he has been talking to
Wasub for an hour. Will you go down to see him, sir, or shall I
send a couple of men to carry him on deck?"
Lingard looked bewildered for a moment.
"Who on earth is he?" he asked.
"Why, it's that fellow whom you sent out, that night I met you,
to catch our first gig. What do they call him? Jaffir, I think.
Hasn't he been with you ashore, sir? Didn't he find you with the
letter I gave him for you? A most determined looking chap. I knew
him again the moment we got him off the log."
Lingard seized hold of the royal backstay within reach of his
hand. Jaffir! Jaffir! Faithful above all others; the messenger of
supreme moments; the reckless and devoted servant! Lingard felt a
crushing sense of despair. "No, I can't face this," he whispered
to himself, looking at the coast black as ink now before his eyes
in the world's shadow that was slowly encompassing the grey
clearness of the Shallow Waters. "Send Wasub to me. I am going
down into the cabin."
He crossed over to the companion, then checking himself suddenly:
"Was there a boat from the yacht during the day?" he asked as if
struck by a sudden thought.--"No, sir," answered Carter. "We had
no communication with the yacht to-day."--"Send Wasub to me,"
repeated Lingard in a stern voice as he went down the stairs.
The old serang coming in noiselessly saw his Captain as he had
seen him many times before, sitting under the gilt thunderbolts,
apparently as strong in his body, in his wealth, and in his
knowledge of secret words that have a power over men and
elements, as ever. The old Malay squatted down within a couple of
feet from Lingard, leaned his back against the satinwood panel of
the bulkhead, then raising his old eyes with a watchful and
benevolent expression to the white man's face, clasped his hands
between his knees.
"Wasub, you have learned now everything. Is there no one left
alive but Jaffir? Are they all dead?"
"May you live!" answered Wasub; and Lingard whispered an appalled
"All dead!" to which Wasub nodded slightly twice. His cracked
voice had a lamenting intonation. "It is all true! It is all
true! You are left alone, Tuan; you are left alone!"
"It was their destiny," said Lingard at last, with forced
calmness. "But has Jaffir told you of the manner of this
calamity? How is it that he alone came out alive from it to be
found by you?"
"He was told by his lord to depart and he obeyed," began Wasub,
fixing his eyes on the deck and speaking just loud enough to be
heard by Lingard, who, bending forward in his seat, shrank
inwardly from every word and yet would not have missed a single
one of them for anything.
For the catastrophe had fallen on his head like a bolt from the
blue in the early morning hours of the day before. At the first
break of dawn he had been sent for to résumé his talk with
Belarab. He had felt suddenly Mrs. Travers remove her hand from
his head. Her voice speaking intimately into his ear: "Get up.
There are some people coming," had recalled him to himself. He
had got up from the ground. The light was dim, the air full of
mist; and it was only gradually that he began to make out forms
above his head and about his feet: trees, houses, men sleeping on
the ground. He didn't recognize them. It was but a cruel change
of dream. Who could tell what was real in this world? He looked
about him, dazedly; he was still drunk with the deep draught of
oblivion he had conquered for himself. Yes--but it was she who
had let him snatch the cup. He looked down at the woman on the
bench. She moved not. She had remained like that, still for
hours, giving him a waking dream of rest without end, in an
infinity of happiness without sound and movement, without
thought, without joy; but with an infinite ease of content, like
a world-embracing reverie breathing the air of sadness and
scented with love. For hours she had not moved.
"You are the most generous of women," he said. He bent over her.
Her eyes were wide open. Her lips felt cold. It did not shock
him. After he stood up he remained near her. Heat is a consuming
thing, but she with her cold lips seemed to him
indestructible--and, perhaps, immortal!
Again he stooped, but this time it was only to kiss the fringe of
her head scarf. Then he turned away to meet the three men, who,
coming round the corner of the hut containing the prisoners, were
approaching him with measured steps. They desired his presence in
the Council room. Belarab was awake.
They also expressed their satisfaction at finding the white man
awake, because Belarab wanted to impart to him information of the
greatest importance. It seemed to Lingard that he had been awake
ever since he could remember. It was as to being alive that he
felt not so sure. He had no doubt of his existence; but was this
life--this profound indifference, this strange contempt for what
his eyes could see, this distaste for words, this unbelief in the
importance of things and men? He tried to regain possession of
himself, his old self which had things to do, words to speak as
well as to hear. But it was too difficult. He was seduced away by
the tense feeling of existence far superior to the mere
consciousness of life, and which in its immensity of
contradictions, delight, dread, exultation and despair could not
be faced and yet was not to be evaded. There was no peace in it.
But who wanted peace? Surrender was better, the dreadful ease of
slack limbs in the sweep of an enormous tide and in a divine
emptiness of mind. If this was existence then he knew that he
existed. And he knew that the woman existed, too, in the sweep of
the tide, without speech, without movement, without heat!
Indestructible--and, perhaps, immortal! _
Read next: PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH: CHAPTER VII
Read previous: PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH: CHAPTER V
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