D'Alcacer glanced over his shoulder, then: 'It would be the only honourable way. But it may be hard. Too hard for our common fearful hearts.'
'I am prepared for anything.'
He ceased pulling for a moment . . . 'Anything that may be found on a sandbank,' Mrs. Travers went on. 'On an arid, insignificant, and deserted sandbank.'
D'Alcacer gave two strokes and ceased again.
'There is room for a whole world of suffering on a sandbank, for all the bitterness and resentment a human soul may be made to feel.'
'Yes, I suppose you would know,' she whispered while he gave a stroke or two and again glanced over his shoulder. She murmured the words:
'Bitterness, resentment,' and a moment afterward became aware of the keel of the boat running up on the sand. But she didn't move, and d'Alcacer, too, remained seated on the thwart with the blades of his sculls raised as if ready to drop them and back the dinghy out into deep water at the first sign.
Mrs. Travers made no sign, but she asked, abruptly: 'Mr. d'Alcacer, do you think I shall ever come back?'
Her tone seemed to him to lack sincerity. But who could tell what this abruptness covered—sincere fear or mere vanity? He asked himself whether she was playing a part for his benefit, or only for herself.
'I don't think you quite understand the situation, Mrs. Travers. I don't think you have a clear idea, either of his simplicity or of his visionary's pride.'
She thought, contemptuously, that there were other things which d'Alcacer didn't know and surrendered to a sudden temptation to enlighten him a little.
'You forget his capacity for passion and that his simplicity doesn't know its own strength.'
There was no mistaking the sincerity of that murmur. 'She has felt it,' d'Alcacer said to himself with absolute certitude. He wondered when, where, how, on what occasion? Mrs. Travers stood up in the stern sheets suddenly and d'Alcacer leaped on the sand to help her out of the boat.
'Hadn't I better hang about here to take you back again?' he suggested, as he let go her hand.
'You mustn't!' she exclaimed, anxiously. 'You must return to the yacht. There will be plenty of light in another hour. I will come to this spot and wave my handkerchief when I want to be taken off.'
At their feet the shallow water slept profoundly, the ghostly gleam of the sands baffled the eye by its lack of form. Far off, the growth of bushes in the centre raised a massive black bulk against the stars to the southward. Mrs. Travers lingered for a moment near the boat as if afraid of the strange solitude of this lonely sandbank and of this lone sea that seemed to fill the whole encircling universe of remote stars and limitless shadows. 'There is nobody here,' she whispered to herself.
'He is somewhere about waiting for you, or I don't know the man,' affirmed d'Alcacer in an undertone. He gave a vigorous shove which sent the little boat into the water.
D'Alcacer was perfectly right. Lingard had come up on deck long before Mrs. Travers woke up with her face wet with tears. The burial party had returned hours before and the crew of the brig were plunged in sleep, except for two watchmen, who at Lingard's appearance retreated noiselessly from the poop. Lingard, leaning on the rail, fell into a sombre reverie of his past. Reproachful spectres crowded the air, animated and vocal, not in the articulate language of mortals but assailing him with faint sobs, deep sighs, and fateful gestures. When he came to himself and turned about they vanished, all but one dark shape without sound or movement. Lingard looked at it with secret horror.
'Who's that?' he asked in a troubled voice.
The shadow moved closer: 'It's only me, sir,' said Carter, who had left orders to be called directly the Captain was seen on deck.
'Oh, yes, I might have known,' mumbled Lingard in some confusion. He requested Carter to have a boat manned and when after a time the young man told him that it was ready, he said 'All right!' and remained leaning on his elbow.
'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Carter after a longish silence, 'but are you going some distance?'
'No, I only want to be put ashore on the sandbank.'
Carter was relieved to hear this, but also surprised. 'There is nothing living there, sir,' he said.
'I wonder,' muttered Lingard.
'But I am certain,' Carter insisted. 'The last of the women and children belonging to those cut-throats were taken off by the sampans which brought you and the yacht-party out.'
He walked at Lingard's elbow to the gangway and listened to his orders.
'Directly there is enough light to see flags by, make a signal to the schooner to heave short on her cable and loose her sails. If there is any hanging back give them a blank gun, Mr. Carter. I will have no shilly-shallying. If she doesn't go at the word, by heavens, I will drive her out. I am still master here—for another day.'
The overwhelming sense of immensity, of disturbing emptiness, which affects those who walk on the sands in the midst of the sea, intimidated Mrs. Travers. The world resembled a limitless flat shadow which was motionless and elusive. Then against the southern stars she saw a human form that isolated and lone appeared to her immense: the shape of a giant outlined amongst the constellations. As it approached her it shrank to common proportions, got clear of the stars, lost its awesomeness, and became menacing in its ominous and silent advance. Mrs. Travers hastened to speak.
'You have asked for me. I am come. I trust you will have no reason to regret my obedience.'
He walked up quite close to her, bent down slightly to peer into her face. The first of the tropical dawn put its characteristic cold sheen into the sky above the Shore of Refuge.
Mrs. Travers did not turn away her head.
