'I half believe,' answered Carter, 'that his intention was to shoot me in his cabin last night if I—'
'That's not the point,' interrupted Mr. Travers. 'Have you any opinion as to his motives in coming here?'
Carter raised his weary, bloodshot eyes in a face scarlet and peeling as though it had been licked by a flame. 'I know no more than you do, sir. Last night when he had me in that cabin of his, he said he would just as soon shoot me as let me go to look for any other help. It looks as if he were desperately bent upon getting a lot of salvage money out of a stranded yacht.'
Mr. Travers turned away, and, for a moment, appeared immersed in deep thought. This accident of stranding upon a deserted coast was annoying as a loss of time. He tried to minimize it by putting in order the notes collected during the year's travel in the East. He had sent off for assistance; his sailing-master, very crestfallen, made bold to say that the yacht would most likely float at the next spring tides; d'Alcacer, a person of undoubted nobility though of inferior principles, was better than no company, in so far at least that he could play picquet.
Mr. Travers had made up his mind to wait. Then suddenly this rough man, looking as if he had stepped out from an engraving in a book about buccaneers, broke in upon his resignation with mysterious allusions to danger, which sounded absurd yet were disturbing; with dark and warning sentences that sounded like disguised menaces.
Mr. Travers had a heavy and rather long chin which he shaved. His eyes were blue, a chill, naive blue. He faced Lingard untouched by travel, without a mark of weariness or exposure, with the air of having been born invulnerable. He had a full, pale face; and his complexion was perfectly colourless, yet amazingly fresh, as if he had been reared in the shade.
He thought:
'I must put an end to this preposterous hectoring. I won't be intimidated into paying for services I don't need.'
Mr. Travers felt a strong disgust for the impudence of the attempt; and all at once, incredibly, strangely, as though the thing, like a contest with a rival or a friend, had been of profound importance to his career, he felt inexplicably elated at the thought of defeating the secret purposes of that man.
Lingard, unconscious of everything and everybody, contemplated the sea. He had grown on it, he had lived with it; it had enticed him away from home; on it his thoughts had expanded and his hand had found work to do. It had suggested endeavour, it had made him owner and commander of the finest brig afloat; it had lulled him into a belief in himself, in his strength, in his luck—and suddenly, by its complicity in a fatal accident, it had brought him face to face with a difficulty that looked like the beginning of disaster.
He had said all he dared to say—and he perceived that he was not believed. This had not happened to him for years. It had never happened. It bewildered him as if he had suddenly discovered that he was no longer himself. He had come to them and had said: 'I mean well by you. I am Tom Lingard—' and they did not believe! Before such scepticism he was helpless, because he had never imagined it possible. He had said: 'You are in the way of my work. You are in the way of what I can not give up for any one; but I will see you through all safe if you will only trust me—me, Tom Lingard.' And they would not believe him! It was intolerable. He imagined himself sweeping their disbelief out of his way. And why not? He did not know them, he did not care for them, he did not even need to lift his hand against them! All he had to do was to shut his eyes now for a day or two, and afterward he could forget that he had ever seen them. It would be easy. Let their disbelief vanish, their folly disappear, their bodies perish. . . . It was that—or ruin!
III
Lingard's gaze, detaching itself from the silent sea, travelled slowly over the silent figures clustering forward, over the faces of the seamen attentive and surprised, over the faces never seen before yet suggesting old days—his youth—other seas—the distant shores of early memories. Mr. Travers gave a start also, and the hand which had been busy with his left whisker went into the pocket of his jacket, as though he had plucked out something worth keeping. He made a quick step toward Lingard.
'I don't see my way to utilize your services,' he said, with cold finality.
Lingard, grasping his beard, looked down at him thoughtfully for a short time.
'Perhaps it's just as well,' he said, very slowly, 'because I did not offer my services. I've offered to take you on board my brig for a few days, as your only chance of safety. And you asked me what were my motives. My motives! If you don't see them they are not for you to know.'
And these men who, two hours before had never seen each other, stood for a moment close together, antagonistic, as if they had been life-long enemies, one short, dapper and glaring upward, the other towering heavily, and looking down in contempt and anger.
Mr. d'Alcacer, without taking his eyes off them, bent low over the deck chair.
'Have you ever seen a man dashing himself at a stone wall?' he asked, confidentially.
'No,' said Mrs. Travers, gazing straight before her above the slow flutter of the fan. 'No, I did not know it was ever done; men burrow under or slip round quietly while they look the other way.'
'Ah! you define diplomacy,' murmured d'Alcacer. 'A little of it here would do no harm. But our picturesque visitor has none of it. I've a great liking for him.'
'Already!' breathed out Mrs. Travers, with a smile that touched her lips with its bright wing and was flown almost before it could be seen.
'There is liking at first sight,' affirmed d'Alcacer, 'as well as love at first sight—the coup de foudre—you know.'
She looked up for a moment, and he went on, gravely: 'I think it is the truest, the most profound of sentiments. You do not love because of what is in the other. You love because of something that is in you—something alive—in yourself.' He struck his breast lightly with the tip of one finger. 'A capacity in you. And not everyone may have it— not everyone deserves to be touched by fire from heaven.'
'And die,' she said.
He made a slight movement.
'Who can tell? That is as it may be. But it is always a privilege, even if one must live a little after being burnt.'
