Mrs. Travers' fine ear caught the mingled tones of suppressed exultation and dawning fear, the ardour and the faltering of those words. She was feeling still the physical truth at the root of them so strongly that she couldn't help saying in a dreamy whisper:
'Did you mean to crush the life out of me?'
He answered in the same tone:
'I could not have done it. You are too strong. Was I rough? I didn't mean to be. I have been often told I didn't know my own strength. You did not seem able to get through that opening and so I caught hold of you. You came away in my hands quite easily. Suddenly I thought to myself, 'now I will make sure.''
He paused as if his breath had failed him. Mrs. Travers dared not make the slightest movement. Still in the pose of one in quest of hidden truth she murmured, 'Make sure?'
'Yes. And now I am sure. You are here—here! Before I couldn't tell.'
'Oh, you couldn't tell before,' she said.
'No.'
'So it was reality that you were seeking.'
He repeated as if speaking to himself: 'And now I am sure.'
Her sandalled foot, all rosy in the glow, felt the warmth of the embers. The tepid night had enveloped her body; and still under the impression of his strength she gave herself up to a momentary feeling of quietude that came about her heart as soft as the night air penetrated by the feeble clearness of the stars. 'This is a limpid soul,' she thought.
'You know I always believed in you,' he began again. 'You know I did. Well. I never believed in you so much as I do now, as you sit there, just as you are, and with hardly enough light to make you out by.'
It occurred to her that she had never heard a voice she liked so well—except one. But that had been a great actor's voice; whereas this man was nothing in the world but his very own self. He persuaded, he moved, he disturbed, he soothed by his inherent truth. He had wanted to make sure and he had made sure apparently; and too weary to resist the waywardness of her thoughts Mrs. Travers reflected with a sort of amusement that apparently he had not been disappointed. She thought, 'He believes in me. What amazing words. Of all the people that might have believed in me I had to find this one here. He believes in me more than in himself.' A gust of sudden remorse tore her out from her quietness, made her cry out to him:
'Captain Lingard, we forget how we have met, we forget what is going on. We mustn't. I won't say that you placed your belief wrongly but I have to confess something to you. I must tell you how I came here to-night. Jorgenson . . .'
He interrupted her forcibly but without raising his voice.
'Jorgenson. Who's Jorgenson? You came to me because you couldn't help yourself.'
This took her breath away. 'But I must tell you. There is something in my coming which is not clear to me.'
'You can tell me nothing that I don't know already,' he said in a pleading tone. 'Say nothing. Sit still. Time enough to-morrow. To-morrow! The night is drawing to an end and I care for nothing in the world but you. Let me be. Give me the rest that is in you.'
She had never heard such accents on his lips and she felt for him a great and tender pity. Why not humour this mood in which he wanted to preserve the moments that would never come to him again on this earth? She hesitated in silence. She saw him stir in the darkness as if he could not make up his mind to sit down on the bench. But suddenly he scattered the embers with his foot and sank on the ground against her feet, and she was not startled in the least to feel the weight of his head on her knee. Mrs. Travers was not startled but she felt profoundly moved. Why should she torment him with all those questions of freedom and captivity, of violence and intrigue, of life and death? He was not in a state to be told anything and it seemed to her that she did not want to speak, that in the greatness of her compassion she simply could not speak. All she could do for him was to rest her hand lightly on his head and respond silently to the slight movement she felt, sigh or sob, but a movement which suddenly immobilized her in an anxious emotion.
About the same time on the other side of the lagoon Jorgenson, raising his eyes, noted the stars and said to himself that the night would not last long now. He wished for daylight. He hoped that Lingard had already done something. The blaze in Tengga's compound had been re-lighted. Tom's power was unbounded, practically unbounded. And he was invulnerable.
Jorgenson let his old eyes wander amongst the gleams and shadows of the great sheet of water between him and that hostile shore and fancied he could detect a floating shadow having the characteristic shape of a man in a small canoe.
'O! Ya! Man!' he hailed. 'What do you want?' Other eyes, too, had detected that shadow. Low murmurs arose on the deck of the Emma. 'If you don't speak at once I shall fire,' shouted Jorgenson, fiercely.
'No, white man,' returned the floating shape in a solemn drawl. 'I am the bearer of friendly words. A chief's words. I come from Tengga.'
'There was a bullet that came on board not a long time ago—also from Tengga,' said Jorgenson.
'That was an accident,' protested the voice from the lagoon. 'What else could it be? Is there war between you and Tengga? No, no, O white man! All Tengga desires is a long talk. He has sent me to ask you to come ashore.'
At these words Jorgenson's heart sank a little. This invitation meant that Lingard had made no move. Was Tom asleep or altogether mad?
'The talk would be of peace,' declared impressively the shadow which had drifted much closer to the hulk now.
'It isn't for me to talk with great chiefs,' Jorgenson returned, cautiously.
'But Tengga is a friend,' argued the nocturnal messenger. 'And by that fire there are other friends—your friends, the Rajah Hassim and the lady Immada, who send you their greetings and who expect their eyes to rest on you before sunrise.'
