structure within which by the light of a small oil flame d'Alcacer and Mrs. Travers were just then conversing.
'Yes, I have them here.'
'Then, Rajah Laut,' whispered Jaffir, 'you can make all safe by giving them back.'
'Can I do that?' were the words breathed out through Lingard's lips to the faithful follower of Hassim and Immada.
'Can you do anything else?' was the whispered retort of Jaffir the messenger accustomed to speak frankly to the great of the earth. 'You are a white man and you can have only one word. And now I go.'
A small, rough dug-out belonging to the Emma had been brought round to the ladder. A shadowy calash hovering respectfully in the darkness of the deck had already cleared his throat twice in a warning manner.
'Yes, Jaffir, go,' said Lingard, 'and be my friend.'
'I am the friend of a great prince,' said the other, sturdily. 'But you, Rajah Laut, were even greater. And great you will remain while you are with us, people of this sea and of this land. But what becomes of the strength of your arms before your own white people? Where does it go to, I say? Well, then, we must trust in the strength of your heart.'
'I hope that will never fail,' said Lingard, and Jaffir emitted a grunt of satisfaction. 'But God alone sees into men's hearts.'
'Yes. Our refuge is with Allah,' assented Jaffir, who had acquired the habit of pious turns of speech in the frequentation of professedly religious men, of whom there were many in Belarab's stockade. As a matter of fact, he reposed all his trust in Lingard who had with him the prestige of a providential man sent at the hour of need by heaven itself. He waited a while, then: 'What is the message I am to take?' he asked.
'Tell the whole tale to the Rajah Hassim,' said Lingard. 'And tell him to make his way here with the lady his sister secretly and with speed. The time of great trouble has come. Let us, at least, be together.'
'Right! Right!' Jaffir approved, heartily. 'To die alone under the weight of one's enemies is a dreadful fate.'
He stepped back out of the sheen of the lamp by which they had been talking and making his way down into the small canoe he took up a paddle and without a splash vanished on the dark lagoon.
It was then that Mrs. Travers and d'Alcacer heard Lingard call aloud for Jorgenson. Instantly the familiar shadow stood at Lingard's elbow and listened in detached silence. Only at the end of the tale it marvelled audibly: 'Here's a mess for you if you like.' But really nothing in the world could astonish or startle old Jorgenson. He turned away muttering in his moustache. Lingard remained with his chin in his hand and Jaffir's last words took gradual possession of his mind. Then brusquely he picked up the lamp and went to seek Mrs. Travers. He went to seek her because he actually needed her bodily presence, the sound of her voice, the dark, clear glance of her eyes. She could do nothing for him. On his way he became aware that Jorgenson had turned out the few Malays on board the Emma and was disposing them about the decks to watch the lagoon in all directions. On calling Mrs. Travers out of the Cage Lingard was, in the midst of his mental struggle, conscious of a certain satisfaction in taking her away from d'Alcacer. He couldn't spare any of her attention to any other man, not the least crumb of her time, not the least particle of her thought! He needed it all. To see it withdrawn from him for the merest instant was irritating— seemed a disaster.
D'Alcacer, left alone, wondered at the imperious tone of Lingard's call. To this observer of shades the fact seemed considerable. 'Sheer nerves,' he concluded, to himself. 'The man is overstrung. He must have had some sort of shock.' But what could it be—he wondered to himself. In the tense stagnation of those days of waiting the slightest tremor had an enormous importance. D'Alcacer did not seek his camp bedstead. He didn't even sit down. With the palms of his hands against the edge of the table he leaned back against it. In that negligent attitude he preserved an alert mind which for a moment wondered whether Mrs. Travers had not spoiled Lingard a little. Yet in the suddenness of the forced association, where, too, d'Alcacer was sure there was some moral problem in the background, he recognized the extreme difficulty of weighing accurately the imperious demands against the necessary reservations, the exact proportions of boldness and caution. And d'Alcacer admired upon the whole Mrs. Travers' cleverness.
There could be no doubt that she had the situation in her hands. That, of course, did not mean safety. She had it in her hands as one may hold some highly explosive and uncertain compound. D'Alcacer thought of her with profound sympathy and with a quite unselfish interest. Sometimes in a street we cross the path of personalities compelling sympathy and wonder but for all that we don't follow them home. D'Alcacer refrained from following Mrs. Travers any further. He had become suddenly aware that Mr. Travers was sitting up on his camp bedstead. He must have done it very suddenly. Only a moment before he had appeared plunged in the deepest slumber, and the stillness for a long time now had been perfectly unbroken. D'Alcacer was startled enough for an exclamation and Mr. Travers turned his head slowly in his direction. D'Alcacer approached the bedstead with a certain reluctance.
'Awake?' he said.
'A sudden chill,' said Mr. Travers. 'But I don't feel cold now. Strange! I had the impression of an icy blast.'
'Ah!' said d'Alcacer.
'Impossible, of course!' went on Mr. Travers. 'This stagnating air never moves. It clings odiously to one. What time is it?'
'Really, I don't know.'
'The glass of my watch was smashed on that night when we were so treacherously assailed by the savages on the sandbank,' grumbled Mr. Travers.
'I must say I was never so surprised in my life,' confessed d'Alcacer. 'We had stopped and I was lighting a cigar, you may remember.'
'No,' said Mr. Travers. 'I had just then pulled out my watch. Of course it flew out of my hand but it hung by the chain. Somebody trampled on it. The hands are broken off short. It keeps on ticking but I can't tell the time. It's absurd. Most provoking.'
'Do you mean to say,' asked d'Alcacer, 'that you have been winding it up every evening?'
Mr. Travers looked up from his bedstead and he also seemed surprised. 'Why! I suppose I have.' He kept silent for a while. 'It isn't so much blind habit as you may think. My habits are the outcome of strict method. I had to
