'You don't want a pilot; a man could go through with his eyes shut. But if you want me, I'll come. Ten dollars.'
Then, after seeing his charge clear of the last island of the group he would go back thirty miles in a canoe, with two old Malays who seemed to be in some way his followers. To travel thirty miles at sea under the equatorial sun and in a cranky dug-out where once down you must not move, is an achievement that requires the endurance of a fakir and the virtue of a salamander. Ten dollars was cheap and generally he was in demand. When times were hard he would borrow five dollars from any of the adventurers with the remark:
'I can't pay you back, very soon, but the girl must eat, and if you want to know anything, I can tell you.'
It was remarkable that nobody ever smiled at that 'anything.' The usual thing was to say:
'Thank you, old man; when I am pushed for a bit of information I'll come to you.'
Jorgenson nodded then and would say: 'Remember that unless you young chaps are like we men who ranged about here years ago, what I could tell you would be worse than poison.'
It was from Jorgenson, who had his favourites with whom he was less silent, that Lingard had heard of Darat- es-Salam, the 'Shore of Refuge.' Jorgenson had, as he expressed it, 'known the inside of that country just after the high old times when the white-clad Padris preached and fought all over Sumatra till the Dutch shook in their shoes.' Only he did not say 'shook' and 'shoes' but the above paraphrase conveys well enough his contemptuous meaning. Lingard tried now to remember and piece together the practical bits of old Jorgenson's amazing tales; but all that had remained with him was an approximate idea of the locality and a very strong but confused notion of the dangerous nature of its approaches. He hesitated, and the brig, answering in her movements to the state of the man's mind, lingered on the road, seemed to hesitate also, swinging this way and that on the days of calm.
It was just because of that hesitation that a big New York ship, loaded with oil in cases for Japan, and passing through the Billiton passage, sighted one morning a very smart brig being hove-to right in the fair-way and a little to the east of Carimata. The lank skipper, in a frock-coat, and the big mate with heavy moustaches, judged her almost too pretty for a Britisher, and wondered at the man on board laying his topsail to the mast for no reason that they could see. The big ship's sails fanned her along, flapping in the light air, and when the brig was last seen far astern she had still her mainyard aback as if waiting for someone. But when, next day, a London tea-clipper passed on the same track, she saw no pretty brig hesitating, all white and still at the parting of the ways. All that night Lingard had talked with Hassim while the stars streamed from east to west like an immense river of sparks above their heads. Immada listened, sometimes exclaiming low, sometimes holding her breath. She clapped her hands once. A faint dawn appeared.
'You shall be treated like my father in the country,' Hassim was saying. A heavy dew dripped off the rigging and the darkened sails were black on the pale azure of the sky. 'You shall be the father who advises for good —'
'I shall be a steady friend, and as a friend I want to be treated—no more,' said Lingard. 'Take back your ring.'
'Why do you scorn my gift?' asked Hassim, with a sad and ironic smile.
'Take it,' said Lingard. 'It is still mine. How can I forget that, when facing death, you thought of my safety? There are many dangers before us. We shall be often separated—to work better for the same end. If ever you and Immada need help at once and I am within reach, send me a message with this ring and if I am alive I will not fail you.' He looked around at the pale daybreak. 'I shall talk to Belarab straight—like we whites do. I have never seen him, but I am a strong man. Belarab must help us to reconquer your country and when our end is attained I won't let him eat you up.'
Hassim took the ring and inclined his head.
'It's time for us to be moving,' said Lingard. He felt a slight tug at his sleeve. He looked back and caught Immada in the act of pressing her forehead to the grey flannel. 'Don't, child!' he said, softly.
The sun rose above the faint blue line of the Shore of Refuge.
The hesitation was over. The man and the vessel, working in accord, had found their way to the faint blue shore. Before the sun had descended half-way to its rest the brig was anchored within a gunshot of the slimy mangroves, in a place where for a hundred years or more no white man's vessel had been entrusted to the hold of the bottom. The adventurers of two centuries ago had no doubt known of that anchorage for they were very ignorant and incomparably audacious. If it is true, as some say, that the spirits of the dead haunt the places where the living have sinned and toiled, then they might have seen a white long-boat, pulled by eight oars and steered by a man sunburnt and bearded, a cabbage-leaf hat on head, and pistols in his belt, skirting the black mud, full of twisted roots, in search of a likely opening.
Creek after creek was passed and the boat crept on slowly like a monstrous water-spider with a big body and eight slender legs. . . . Did you follow with your ghostly eyes the quest of this obscure adventurer of yesterday, you shades of forgotten adventurers who, in leather jerkins and sweating under steel helmets, attacked with long rapiers the palisades of the strange heathen, or, musket on shoulder and match in cock, guarded timber blockhouses built upon the banks of rivers that command good trade? You, who, wearied with the toil of fighting, slept wrapped in frieze mantles on the sand of quiet beaches, dreaming of fabulous diamonds and of a far-off home.
'Here's an opening,' said Lingard to Hassim, who sat at his side, just as the sun was setting away to his left. 'Here's an opening big enough for a ship. It's the entrance we are looking for, I believe. We shall pull all night up this creek if necessary and it's the very devil if we don't come upon Belarab's lair before daylight.'
He shoved the tiller hard over and the boat, swerving sharply, vanished from the coast.
And perhaps the ghosts of old adventurers nodded wisely their ghostly heads and exchanged the ghost of a wistful smile.
V
'What's the matter with King Tom of late?' would ask someone when, all the cards in a heap on the table, the traders lying back in their chairs took a spell from a hard gamble.
'Tom has learned to hold his tongue, he must be up to some dam' good thing,' opined another; while a man with hooked features and of German extraction who was supposed to be agent for a Dutch crockery house—the famous 'Sphinx' mark—broke in resentfully:
'Nefer mind him, shentlemens, he's matt, matt as a Marsh Hase. Dree monats ago I call on board his prig to talk pizness. And he says like dis—'Glear oudt.' 'Vat for?' I say. 'Glear oudt before I shuck you oferboard.' Gott-for- dam! Iss dat the vay to talk pizness? I vant sell him ein liddle case first chop grockery for trade and—'
