'He was still in the water when all the world was darkened round him as if the life of the sun had been blown out of it in a crash. A great wave came along and washed him on shore, while pieces of wood, iron, and the limbs of torn men were splashing round him in the water. He managed to crawl out of the mud. Something had hit him while he was swimming and he thought he would die. But life stirred in him. He had a message for you. For a long time he went on crawling under the big trees on his hands and knees, for there is no rest for a messenger till the message is delivered. At last he found himself on the left bank of the creek. And still he felt life stir in him. So he started to swim across, for if you were in this world you were on the other side. While he swam he felt his strength abandoning him. He managed to scramble on to a drifting log and lay on it like one who is dead, till we pulled him into one of our boats.'
Wasub ceased. It seemed to Lingard that it was impossible for mortal man to suffer more than he suffered in the succeeding moment of silence crowded by the mute images as of universal destruction. He felt himself gone to pieces as though the violent expression of Jorgenson's intolerable mistrust of the life of men had shattered his soul, leaving his body robbed of all power of resistance and of all fortitude, a prey forever to infinite remorse and endless regrets.
'Leave me, Wasub,' he said. 'They are all dead—but I would sleep.'
Wasub raised his dumb old eyes to the white man's face.
'Tuan, it is necessary that you should hear Jaffir,' he said, patiently.
'Is he going to die?' asked Lingard in a low, cautious tone as though he were afraid of the sound of his own voice.
'Who can tell?' Wasub's voice sounded more patient than ever. 'There is no wound on his body but, O Tuan, he does not wish to live.'
'Abandoned by his God,' muttered Lingard to himself.
Wasub waited a little before he went on, 'And, Tuan, he has a message for you.'
'Of course. Well, I don't want to hear it.'
'It is from those who will never speak to you again,' Wasub persevered, sadly. 'It is a great trust. A Rajah's own words. It is difficult for Jaffir to die. He keeps on muttering about a ring that was for you, and that he let pass out of his care. It was a great talisman!'
'Yes. But it did not work this time. And if I go and tell Jaffir why he will be able to tell his Rajah, O Wasub, since you say that he is going to die. . . . I wonder where they will meet,' he muttered to himself.
Once more Wasub raised his eyes to Lingard's face. 'Paradise is the lot of all True Believers,' he whispered, firm in his simple faith.
The man who had been undone by a glimpse of Paradise exchanged a profound look with the old Malay. Then he got up. On his passage to the main hatchway the commander of the brig met no one on the decks, as if all mankind had given him up except the old man who preceded him and that other man dying in the deepening twilight, who was awaiting his coming. Below, in the light of the hatchway, he saw a young Calash with a broad yellow face and his wiry hair sticking up in stiff wisps through the folds of his head-kerchief, holding an earthenware water-jar to the lips of Jaffir extended on his back on a pile of mats.
A languid roll of the already glazed eyeballs, a mere stir of black and white in the gathering dusk showed that the faithful messenger of princes was aware of the presence of the man who had been so long known to him and his people as the King of the Sea. Lingard knelt down close to Jaffir's head, which rolled a little from side to side and then became still, staring at a beam of the upper deck. Lingard bent his ear to the dark lips. 'Deliver your message' he said in a gentle tone.
'The Rajah wished to hold your hand once more,' whispered Jaffir so faintly that Lingard had to guess the words rather than hear them. 'I was to tell you,' he went on—and stopped suddenly.
'What were you to tell me?'
'To forget everything,' said Jaffir with a loud effort as if beginning a long speech. After that he said nothing more till Lingard murmured, 'And the lady Immada?'
Jaffir collected all his strength. 'She hoped no more,' he uttered, distinctly. 'The order came to her while she mourned, veiled, apart. I didn't even see her face.'
Lingard swayed over the dying man so heavily that Wasub, standing near by, hastened to catch him by the shoulder. Jaffir seemed unaware of anything, and went on staring at the beam.
'Can you hear me, O Jaffir?' asked Lingard.
'I hear.'
'I never had the ring. Who could bring it to me?'
'We gave it to the white woman—may Jehannum be her lot!'
'No! It shall be my lot,' said Lingard with despairing force, while Wasub raised both his hands in dismay. 'For, listen, Jaffir, if she had given the ring to me it would have been to one that was dumb, deaf, and robbed of all courage.'
It was impossible to say whether Jaffir had heard. He made no sound, there was no change in his awful stare, but his prone body moved under the cotton sheet as if to get further away from the white man. Lingard got up slowly and making a sign to Wasub to remain where he was, went up on deck without giving another glance to the dying man. Again it seemed to him that he was pacing the quarter-deck of a deserted ship. The mulatto steward, watching through the crack of the pantry door, saw the Captain stagger into the cuddy and fling-to the door behind him with a crash. For more than an hour nobody approached that closed door till Carter coming down the companion stairs spoke without attempting to open it.
'Are you there, sir?' The answer, 'You may come in,' comforted the young man by its strong resonance. He went in.
'Well?'
'Jaffir is dead. This moment. I thought you would want to know.'
Lingard looked persistently at Carter, thinking that now Jaffir was dead there was no one left on the empty
