'Our boats back yet?' he asked Shaw, whom he saw prowling on the quarter-deck.
'No, sir, I wish they were. I am waiting for them to go and turn in,' answered the mate in an aggrieved manner.
'Lower that lantern forward there,' cried Lingard, suddenly, in Malay.
'This trade isn't fit for a decent man,' muttered Shaw to himself, and he moved away to lean on the rail, looking moodily to seaward. After a while: 'There seems to be commotion on board that yacht,' he said. 'I see a lot of lights moving about her decks. Anything wrong, do you think, sir?'
'No, I know what it is,' said Lingard in a tone of elation. She has done it! he thought.
He returned to the cabin, put away Jorgenson's letter and pulled out the drawer of the table. It was full of cartridges. He took a musket down, loaded it, then took another and another. He hammered at the waddings with fierce joyousness. The ramrods rang and jumped. It seemed to him he was doing his share of some work in which that woman was playing her part faithfully. 'She has done it,' he repeated, mentally. 'She will sit in the cuddy. She will sleep in my berth. Well, I'm not ashamed of the brig. By heavens—no! I shall keep away: never come near them as I've promised. Now there's nothing more to say. I've told her everything at once. There's nothing more.'
He felt a heaviness in his burning breast, in all his limbs as if the blood in his veins had become molten lead.
'I shall get the yacht off. Three, four days—no, a week.'
He found he couldn't do it under a week. It occurred to him he would see her every day till the yacht was afloat. No, he wouldn't intrude, but he was master and owner of the brig after all. He didn't mean to skulk like a whipped cur about his own decks.
'It'll be ten days before the schooner is ready. I'll take every scrap of ballast out of her. I'll strip her—I'll take her lower masts out of her, by heavens! I'll make sure. Then another week to fit out—and—goodbye. Wish I had never seen them. Good-bye—forever. Home's the place for them. Not for me. On another coast she would not have listened. Ah, but she is a woman—every inch of her. I shall shake hands. Yes. I shall take her hand—just before she goes. Why the devil not? I am master here after all—in this brig—as good as any one—by heavens, better than any one—better than any one on earth.'
He heard Shaw walk smartly forward above his head hailing:
'What's that—a boat?'
A voice answered indistinctly.
'One of my boats is back,' thought Lingard. 'News about Daman perhaps. I don't care if he kicks. I wish he would. I would soon show her I can fight as well as I can handle the brig. Two praus. Only two praus. I wouldn't mind if there were twenty. I would sweep 'em off the sea—I would blow 'em out of the water—I would make the brig walk over them. 'Now,' I'd say to her, 'you who are not afraid, look how it's done!''
He felt light. He had the sensation of being whirled high in the midst of an uproar and as powerless as a feather in a hurricane. He shuddered profoundly. His arms hung down, and he stood before the table staring like a man overcome by some fatal intelligence.
Shaw, going into the waist to receive what he thought was one of the brig's boats, came against Carter making his way aft hurriedly.
'Hullo! Is it you again?' he said, swiftly, barring the way.
'I come from the yacht,' began Carter with some impatience.
'Where else could you come from?' said Shaw. 'And what might you want now?'
'I want to see your skipper.'
'Well, you can't,' declared Shaw, viciously. 'He's turned in for the night.'
'He expects me,' said Carter, stamping his foot. 'I've got to tell him what happened.'
'Don't you fret yourself, young man,' said Shaw in a superior manner; 'he knows all about it.'
They stood suddenly silent in the dark. Carter seemed at a loss what to do. Shaw, though surprised by it, enjoyed the effect he had produced.
'Damn me, if I did not think so,' murmured Carter to himself; then drawling coolly asked—'And perhaps you know, too?'
'What do you think? Think I am a dummy here? I ain't mate of this brig for nothing.'
'No, you are not,' said Carter with a certain bitterness of tone. 'People do all kinds of queer things for a living, and I am not particular myself, but I would think twice before taking your billet.'
'What? What do you in-si-nu-ate. My billet? You ain't fit for it, you yacht-swabbing brass-buttoned imposter.'
'What's this? Any of our boats back?' asked Lingard from the poop. 'Let the seacannie in charge come to me at once.'
'There's only a message from the yacht,' began Shaw, deliberately.
'Yacht! Get the deck lamps along here in the waist! See the ladder lowered. Bear a hand, serang! Mr. Shaw! Burn the flare up aft. Two of them! Give light to the yacht's boats that will be coming alongside. Steward! Where's that steward? Turn him out then.'
Bare feet began to patter all round Carter. Shadows glided swiftly.
'Are these flares coming? Where's the quartermaster on duty?' shouted Lingard in English and Malay. 'This way, come here! Put it on a rocket stick—can't you? Hold over the side—thus! Stand by with the lines for the boats forward there. Mr. Shaw—we want more light!'
'Aye, aye, sir,' called out Shaw, but he did not move, as if dazed by the vehemence of his commander.
