The Rescue (26 page)

He pointed at Hassim and Immada. The girl seemed frightened. Hassim
looked on calm and intelligent with inexhaustible patience. Lingard's
voice fell suddenly.

"And by heavens they may be right. Who knows? You? Do you know? They
have waited for years. Look. They are waiting with heavy hearts. Do you
think that I don't care? Ought I to have kept it all in—told no one—no
one—not even you? Are they waiting for what will never come now?"

Mrs. Travers rose and moved quickly round the table. "Can we give
anything to this—this Daman or these other men? We could give them more
than they could think of asking. I—my husband. . . ."

"Don't talk to me of your husband," he said, roughly. "You don't know
what you are doing." She confronted the sombre anger of his eyes—"But I
must," she asserted with heat.—"Must," he mused, noticing that she was
only half a head less tall than himself. "Must! Oh, yes. Of course, you
must. Must! Yes. But I don't want to hear. Give! What can you give? You
may have all the treasures of the world for all I know. No! You can't
give anything. . . ."

"I was thinking of your difficulty when I spoke," she interrupted. His
eyes wandered downward following the line of her shoulder.—"Of me—of
me!" he repeated.

All this was said almost in whispers. The sound of slow footsteps was
heard on deck above their heads. Lingard turned his face to the open
skylight.

"On deck there! Any wind?"

All was still for a moment. Somebody above answered in a leisurely tone:

"A steady little draught from the northward."

Then after a pause added in a mutter:

"Pitch dark."

"Aye, dark enough," murmured Lingard. He must do something. Now. At
once. The world was waiting. The world full of hopes and fear.
What should he do? Instead of answering that question he traced the
ungleaming coils of her twisted hair and became fascinated by a stray
lock at her neck. What should he do? No one to leave his brig to. The
voice that had answered his question was Carter's voice. "He is hanging
about keeping his eye on me," he said to Mrs. Travers. She shook her
head and tried to smile. The man above coughed discreetly. "No," said
Lingard, "you must understand that you have nothing to give."

The man on deck who seemed to have lingered by the skylight was heard
saying quietly, "I am at hand if you want me, Mrs. Travers." Hassim and
Immada looked up. "You see," exclaimed Lingard. "What did I tell you?
He's keeping his eye on me! On board my own ship. Am I dreaming? Am I in
a fever? Tell him to come down," he said after a pause. Mrs. Travers
did so and Lingard thought her voice very commanding and very sweet.
"There's nothing in the world I love so much as this brig," he went on.
"Nothing in the world. If I lost her I would have no standing room on
the earth for my feet. You don't understand this. You can't."

Carter came in and shut the cabin door carefully. He looked with
serenity at everyone in turn.

"All quiet?" asked Lingard.

"Quiet enough if you like to call it so," he answered. "But if you only
put your head outside the door you'll hear them all on the quarter-deck
snoring against each other, as if there were no wives at home and no
pirates at sea."

"Look here," said Lingard. "I found out that I can't trust my mate."

"Can't you?" drawled Carter. "I am not exactly surprised. I must say
he
does not snore but I believe it is because he is too crazy to
sleep. He waylaid me on the poop just now and said something about evil
communications corrupting good manners. Seems to me I've heard that
before. Queer thing to say. He tried to make it out somehow that if he
wasn't corrupt it wasn't your fault. As if this was any concern of mine.
He's as mad as he's fat—or else he puts it on." Carter laughed a little
and leaned his shoulders against a bulkhead.

Lingard gazed at the woman who expected so much from him and in the
light she seemed to shed he saw himself leading a column of armed boats
to the attack of the Settlement. He could burn the whole place to the
ground and drive every soul of them into the bush. He could! And
there was a surprise, a shock, a vague horror at the thought of the
destructive power of his will. He could give her ever so many lives. He
had seen her yesterday, and it seemed to him he had been all his life
waiting for her to make a sign. She was very still. He pondered a plan
of attack. He saw smoke and flame—and next moment he saw himself alone
amongst shapeless ruins with the whispers, with the sigh and moan of the
Shallows in his ears. He shuddered, and shaking his hand:

"No! I cannot give you all those lives!" he cried.

Then, before Mrs. Travers could guess the meaning of this outburst, he
declared that as the two captives must be saved he would go alone into
the lagoon. He could not think of using force. "You understand why," he
said to Mrs. Travers and she whispered a faint "Yes." He would run the
risk alone. His hope was in Belarab being able to see where his true
interest lay. "If I can only get at him I would soon make him see," he
mused aloud. "Haven't I kept his power up for these two years past? And
he knows it, too. He feels it." Whether he would be allowed to reach
Belarab was another matter. Lingard lost himself in deep thought. "He
would not dare," he burst out. Mrs. Travers listened with parted lips.
Carter did not move a muscle of his youthful and self-possessed face;
only when Lingard, turning suddenly, came up close to him and asked with
a red flash of eyes and in a lowered voice, "Could you fight this brig?"
something like a smile made a stir amongst the hairs of his little fair
moustache.

"'Could I?" he said. "I could try, anyhow." He paused, and added hardly
above his breath, "For the lady—of course."

Lingard seemed staggered as though he had been hit in the chest. "I was
thinking of the brig," he said, gently.

"Mrs. Travers would be on board," retorted Carter.

"What! on board. Ah yes; on board. Where else?" stammered Lingard.

Carter looked at him in amazement. "Fight! You ask!" he said, slowly.
"You just try me."

"I shall," ejaculated Lingard. He left the cabin calling out "serang!" A
thin cracked voice was heard immediately answering, "Tuan!" and the door
slammed to.

"You trust him, Mrs. Travers?" asked Carter, rapidly.

"You do not—why?" she answered.

"I can't make him out. If he was another kind of man I would say he was
drunk," said Carter. "Why is he here at all—he, and this brig of his?
Excuse my boldness—but have you promised him anything?"

"I—I promised!" exclaimed Mrs. Travers in a bitter tone which silenced
Carter for a moment.

"So much the better," he said at last. "Let him show what he can do
first and . . ."

"Here! Take this," said Lingard, who re-entered the cabin fumbling about
his neck. Carter mechanically extended his hand.

"What's this for?" he asked, looking at a small brass key attached to a
thin chain.

"Powder magazine. Trap door under the table. The man who has this key
commands the brig while I am away. The serang understands. You have her
very life in your hand there."

Carter looked at the small key lying in his half-open palm.

"I was just telling Mrs. Travers I didn't trust you—not
altogether. . . ."

"I know all about it," interrupted Lingard, contemptuously. "You carry
a blamed pistol in your pocket to blow my brains out—don't you? What's
that to me? I am thinking of the brig. I think I know your sort. You
will do."

"Well, perhaps I might," mumbled Carter, modestly.

"Don't be rash," said Lingard, anxiously. "If you've got to fight use
your head as well as your hands. If there's a breeze fight under way. If
they should try to board in a calm, trust to the small arms to hold them
off. Keep your head and—" He looked intensely into Carter's eyes; his
lips worked without a sound as though he had been suddenly struck dumb.
"Don't think about me. What's that to you who I am? Think of the ship,"
he burst out. "Don't let her go!—Don't let her go!" The passion in his
voice impressed his hearers who for a time preserved a profound silence.

"All right," said Carter at last. "I will stick to your brig as though
she were my own; but I would like to see clear through all this. Look
here—you are going off somewhere? Alone, you said?"

"Yes. Alone."

"Very well. Mind, then, that you don't come back with a crowd of those
brown friends of yours—or by the Heavens above us I won't let you come
within hail of your own ship. Am I to keep this key?"

"Captain Lingard," said Mrs. Travers suddenly. "Would it not be better
to tell him everything?"

"Tell him everything?" repeated Lingard. "Everything! Yesterday it might
have been done. Only yesterday! Yesterday, did I say? Only six hours
ago—only six hours ago I had something to tell. You heard it. And now
it's gone. Tell him! There's nothing to tell any more." He remained for
a time with bowed head, while before him Mrs. Travers, who had begun a
gesture of protest, dropped her arms suddenly. In a moment he looked up
again.

"Keep the key," he said, calmly, "and when the time comes step forward
and take charge. I am satisfied."

"I would like to see clear through all this though," muttered Carter
again. "And for how long are you leaving us, Captain?" Lingard made no
answer. Carter waited awhile. "Come, sir," he urged. "I ought to have
some notion. What is it? Two, three days?" Lingard started.

"Days," he repeated. "Ah, days. What is it you want to know? Two . . .
three—what did the old fellow say—perhaps for life." This was spoken
so low that no one but Carter heard the last words.—"Do you mean it?"
he murmured. Lingard nodded.—"Wait as long as you can—then go," he
said in the same hardly audible voice. "Go where?"—"Where you like,
nearest port, any port."—"Very good. That's something plain at any
rate," commented the young man with imperturbable good humour.

"I go, O Hassim!" began Lingard and the Malay made a slow inclination of
the head which he did not raise again till Lingard had ceased speaking.
He betrayed neither surprise nor any other emotion while Lingard in a
few concise and sharp sentences made him acquainted with his purpose to
bring about singlehanded the release of the prisoners. When Lingard had
ended with the words: "And you must find a way to help me in the time of
trouble, O Rajah Hassim," he looked up and said:

"Good. You never asked me for anything before."

He smiled at his white friend. There was something subtle in the smile
and afterward an added firmness in the repose of the lips. Immada moved
a step forward. She looked at Lingard with terror in her black and
dilated eyes. She exclaimed in a voice whose vibration startled the
hearts of all the hearers with an indefinable sense of alarm, "He will
perish, Hassim! He will perish alone!"

"No," said Hassim. "Thy fear is as vain to-night as it was at sunrise.
He shall not perish alone."

Her eyelids dropped slowly. From her veiled eyes the tears fell,
vanishing in the silence. Lingard's forehead became furrowed by folds
that seemed to contain an infinity of sombre thoughts. "Remember, O
Hassim, that when I promised you to take you back to your country you
promised me to be a friend to all white men. A friend to all whites who
are of my people, forever."

"My memory is good, O Tuan," said Hassim; "I am not yet back in my
country, but is not everyone the ruler of his own heart? Promises made
by a man of noble birth live as long as the speaker endures."

"Good-bye," said Lingard to Mrs. Travers. "You will be safe here." He
looked all around the cabin. "I leave you," he began again and stopped
short. Mrs. Travers' hand, resting lightly on the edge of the table,
began to tremble. "It's for you . . . Yes. For you alone . . . and it
seems it can't be. . . ."

It seemed to him that he was saying good-bye to all the world, that
he was taking a last leave of his own self. Mrs. Travers did not say a
word, but Immada threw herself between them and cried:

"You are a cruel woman! You are driving him away from where his strength
is. You put madness into his heart, O! Blind—without pity—without
shame! . . ."

"Immada," said Hassim's calm voice. Nobody moved.

"What did she say to me?" faltered Mrs. Travers and again repeated in a
voice that sounded hard, "What did she say?"

"Forgive her," said Lingard. "Her fears are for me . . ."—"It's about
your going?" Mrs. Travers interrupted, swiftly.

"Yes, it is—and you must forgive her." He had turned away his eyes with
something that resembled embarrassment but suddenly he was assailed by
an irresistible longing to look again at that woman. At the moment of
parting he clung to her with his glance as a man holds with his hands
a priceless and disputed possession. The faint blush that overspread
gradually Mrs. Travers' features gave her face an air of extraordinary
and startling animation.

"The danger you run?" she asked, eagerly. He repelled the suggestion by
a slighting gesture of the hand.—"Nothing worth looking at twice. Don't
give it a thought," he said. "I've been in tighter places." He clapped
his hands and waited till he heard the cabin door open behind his back.
"Steward, my pistols." The mulatto in slippers, aproned to the chin,
glided through the cabin with unseeing eyes as though for him no one
there had existed. . . .—"Is it my heart that aches so?" Mrs. Travers
asked herself, contemplating Lingard's motionless figure. "How long will
this sensation of dull pain last? Will it last forever. . . ."—"How
many changes of clothes shall I put up, sir?" asked the steward, while
Lingard took the pistols from him and eased the hammers after putting
on fresh caps.—"I will take nothing this time, steward." He received in
turn from the mulatto's hands a red silk handkerchief, a pocket book, a
cigar-case. He knotted the handkerchief loosely round his throat; it
was evident he was going through the routine of every departure for
the shore; he even opened the cigar-case to see whether it had been
filled.—"Hat, sir," murmured the half-caste. Lingard flung it on his
head.—"Take your orders from this lady, steward—till I come back. The
cabin is hers—do you hear?" He sighed ready to go and seemed unable to
lift a foot.—"I am coming with you," declared Mrs. Travers suddenly in
a tone of unalterable decision. He did not look at her; he did not even
look up; he said nothing, till after Carter had cried: "You can't, Mrs.
Travers!"—when without budging he whispered to himself:—"Of course."
Mrs. Travers had pulled already the hood of her cloak over her head
and her face within the dark cloth had turned an intense and unearthly
white, in which the violet of her eyes appeared unfathomably mysterious.
Carter started forward.—"You don't know this man," he almost shouted.