his own heart? Promises made by a man of noble birth live as long as the speaker endures.'
'Good-bye,' said Lingard to Mrs. Travers. 'You will be safe here.' He looked all around the cabin. 'I leave you,' he began again and stopped short. Mrs. Travers' hand, resting lightly on the edge of the table, began to tremble. 'It's for you . . . Yes. For you alone . . . and it seems it can't be. . . .'
It seemed to him that he was saying good-bye to all the world, that he was taking a last leave of his own self. Mrs. Travers did not say a word, but Immada threw herself between them and cried:
'You are a cruel woman! You are driving him away from where his strength is. You put madness into his heart, O! Blind—without pity—without shame! . . .'
'Immada,' said Hassim's calm voice. Nobody moved.
'What did she say to me?' faltered Mrs. Travers and again repeated in a voice that sounded hard, 'What did she say?'
'Forgive her,' said Lingard. 'Her fears are for me . . .'—'It's about your going?' Mrs. Travers interrupted, swiftly.
'Yes, it is—and you must forgive her.' He had turned away his eyes with something that resembled embarrassment but suddenly he was assailed by an irresistible longing to look again at that woman. At the moment of parting he clung to her with his glance as a man holds with his hands a priceless and disputed possession. The faint blush that overspread gradually Mrs. Travers' features gave her face an air of extraordinary and startling animation.
'The danger you run?' she asked, eagerly. He repelled the suggestion by a slighting gesture of the hand. —'Nothing worth looking at twice. Don't give it a thought,' he said. 'I've been in tighter places.' He clapped his hands and waited till he heard the cabin door open behind his back. 'Steward, my pistols.' The mulatto in slippers, aproned to the chin, glided through the cabin with unseeing eyes as though for him no one there had existed. . . . —'Is it my heart that aches so?' Mrs. Travers asked herself, contemplating Lingard's motionless figure. 'How long will this sensation of dull pain last? Will it last forever. . . .'—'How many changes of clothes shall I put up, sir?' asked the steward, while Lingard took the pistols from him and eased the hammers after putting on fresh caps.—'I will take nothing this time, steward.' He received in turn from the mulatto's hands a red silk handkerchief, a pocket book, a cigar-case. He knotted the handkerchief loosely round his throat; it was evident he was going through the routine of every departure for the shore; he even opened the cigar-case to see whether it had been filled.—'Hat, sir,' murmured the half-caste. Lingard flung it on his head.—'Take your orders from this lady, steward—till I come back. The cabin is hers—do you hear?' He sighed ready to go and seemed unable to lift a foot.—'I am coming with you,' declared Mrs. Travers suddenly in a tone of unalterable decision. He did not look at her; he did not even look up; he said nothing, till after Carter had cried: 'You can't, Mrs. Travers!'—when without budging he whispered to himself:—'Of course.' Mrs. Travers had pulled already the hood of her cloak over her head and her face within the dark cloth had turned an intense and unearthly white, in which the violet of her eyes appeared unfathomably mysterious. Carter started forward.—'You don't know this man,' he almost shouted.
'I do know him,' she said, and before the reproachfully unbelieving attitude of the other she added, speaking slowly and with emphasis: 'There is not, I verily believe, a single thought or act of his life that I don't know.'—'It's true—it's true,' muttered Lingard to himself. Carter threw up his arms with a groan. 'Stand back,' said a voice that sounded to him like a growl of thunder, and he felt a grip on his hand which seemed to crush every bone. He jerked it away.—'Mrs. Travers! stay,' he cried. They had vanished through the open door and the sound of their footsteps had already died away. Carter turned about bewildered as if looking for help.—'Who is he, steward? Who in the name of all the mad devils is he?' he asked, wildly. He was confounded by the cold and philosophical tone of the answer:—''Tain't my place to trouble about that, sir—nor yours I guess.'—'Isn't it!' shouted Carter. 'Why, he has carried the lady off.' The steward was looking critically at the lamp and after a while screwed the light down. —'That's better,' he mumbled.—'Good God! What is a fellow to do?' continued Carter, looking at Hassim and Immada who were whispering together and gave him only an absent glance. He rushed on deck and was struck blind instantly by the night that seemed to have been lying in wait for him; he stumbled over something soft, kicked something hard, flung himself on the rail. 'Come back,' he cried. 'Come back. Captain! Mrs. Travers!—or let me come, too.'
He listened. The breeze blew cool against his cheek. A black bandage seemed to lie over his eyes. 'Gone,' he groaned, utterly crushed. And suddenly he heard Mrs. Travers' voice remote in the depths of the night.—'Defend the brig,' it said, and these words, pronouncing themselves in the immensity of a lightless universe, thrilled every fibre of his body by the commanding sadness of their tone. 'Defend, defend the brig.' . . . 'I am damned if I do,' shouted Carter in despair. 'Unless you come back! . . . Mrs. Travers!'
'. . . as though—I were—on board—myself,' went on the rising cadence of the voice, more distant now, a marvel of faint and imperious clearness.
Carter shouted no more; he tried to make out the boat for a time, and when, giving it up, he leaped down from the rail, the heavy obscurity of the brig's main deck was agitated like a sombre pool by his jump, swayed, eddied, seemed to break up. Blotches of darkness recoiled, drifted away, bare feet shuffled hastily, confused murmurs died out. 'Lascars,' he muttered, 'The crew is all agog.' Afterward he listened for a moment to the faintly tumultuous snores of the white men sleeping in rows, with their heads under the break of the poop. Somewhere about his feet, the yacht's black dog, invisible, and chained to a deck-ringbolt, whined, rattled the thin links, pattered with his claws in his distress at the unfamiliar surroundings, begging for the charity of human notice. Carter stooped impulsively, and was met by a startling lick in the face.—'Hallo, boy!' He thumped the thick curly sides, stroked the smooth head—'Good boy, Rover. Down. Lie down, dog. You don't know what to make of it—do you, boy?' The dog became still as death. 'Well, neither do I,' muttered Carter. But such natures are helped by a cheerful contempt for the intricate and endless suggestions of thought. He told himself that he would soon see what was to come of it, and dismissed all speculation. Had he been a little older he would have felt that the situation was beyond his grasp; but he was too young to see it whole and in a manner detached from himself. All these inexplicable events filled him with deep concern—but then on the other hand he had the key of the magazine and he could not find it in his heart to dislike Lingard. He was positive about this at last, and to know that much after the discomfort of an inward conflict went a long way toward a solution. When he followed Shaw into the cabin he could not repress a sense of enjoyment or hide a faint and malicious smile.
'Gone away—did you say? And carried off the lady with him?' discoursed Shaw very loud in the doorway. 'Did he? Well, I am not surprised. What can you expect from a man like that, who leaves his ship in an open roadstead without—I won't say orders—but without as much as a single word to his next in command? And at night at that! That just shows you the kind of man. Is this the way to treat a chief mate? I apprehend he was riled at the little al- ter-cation we had just before you came on board. I told him a truth or two—but—never mind. There's the law and that's enough for me. I am captain as long as he is out of the ship, and if his address before very long is not in one of Her Majesty's jails or other I au-tho-rize you to call me a Dutchman. You mark my words.'
He walked in masterfully, sat down and surveyed the cabin in a leisurely and autocratic manner; but suddenly his eyes became stony with amazement and indignation; he pointed a fat and trembling forefinger.
'Niggers,' he said, huskily. 'In the cuddy! In the cuddy!' He appeared bereft of speech for a time.
