About the same time on the other side of the lagoon Jörgenson, 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.
Jörgenson 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 Jörgenson, 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 Jörgenson.
“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 Jörgenson’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,” Jörgenson 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.”
“That’s a lie,” remarked Jörgenson, perfunctorily, and fell into thought, while the shadowy bearer of words preserved a scandalized silence, though, of course, he had not expected to be believed for a moment. But one could never tell what a white man would believe. He had wanted to produce the impression that Hassim and Immada were the honoured guests of Tengga. It occurred to him suddenly that perhaps Jörgenson didn’t know anything of the capture. And he persisted.
“My words are all true, Tuan. The Rajah of Wajo and his sister are with my master. I left them sitting by the fire on Tengga’s right hand. Will you come ashore to be welcomed amongst friends?”
Jörgenson had been reflecting profoundly. His object was to gain as much time as possible for Lingard’s interference which indeed could not fail to be effective. But he had not the slightest wish to entrust himself to Tengga’s friendliness. Not that he minded the risk; but he did not see the use of taking it.
“No!” he said, “I can’t go ashore. We white men have ways of our own and I am chief of this hulk. And my chief is the Rajah Laut, a white man like myself. All the words that matter are in him and if Tengga is such a great chief let him ask the Rajah Laut for a talk. Yes, that’s the proper thing for Tengga to do if he is such a great chief as he says.”
“The Rajah Laut has made his choice. He dwells with Belarab, and with the white people who are huddled together like trapped deer in Belarab’s stockade. Why shouldn’t you meantime go over where everything is lighted up and open and talk in friendship with Tengga’s friends, whose hearts have been made sick by many doubts; Rajah Hassim and the lady Immada and Daman, the chief of the men of the sea, who do not know now whom they can trust unless it be you, Tuan, the keeper of much wealth?”
The diplomatist in the small dugout paused for a moment to give special weight to the final argument:
“Which you have no means to defend. We know how many armed men there are with you.”
“They are great fighters,” Jörgenson observed, unconcernedly, spreading his elbows on the rail and looking over at the floating black patch of characteristic shape whence proceeded the voice of the wily envoy of Tengga. “Each man of them is worth ten of such as you can find in the Settlement.”
“Yes, by Allah. Even worth twenty of these common people. Indeed, you have enough with you to make a great fight but not enough for victory.”
“God alone gives victory,” said suddenly the voice of Jaffir, who, very still at Jörgenson’s elbow, had been listening to the conversation.
“Very true,” was the answer in an extremely conventional tone. “Will you come ashore, O white man; and be the leader of chiefs?”
“I have been that before,” said Jörgenson, with great dignity, “and now all I want is peace. But I won’t come ashore amongst people whose minds are so much troubled, till Rajah Hassim and his sister return on board this ship and tell me the tale of their new friendship with Tengga.”
His heart was sinking with every minute, the very air was growing heavier with the sense of oncoming disaster, on that night that was neither war nor peace and whose only voice was the voice of Tengga’s envoy, insinuating in tone though menacing in words.
“No, that cannot be,” said that voice. “But, Tuan, verily Tengga himself is ready to come on board here to talk with you. He is very ready to come and indeed, Tuan, he means to come on board here before very long.”
“Yes, with fifty war-canoes filled with the ferocious rabble of the Shore of Refuge,” Jaffir was heard commenting, sarcastically, over the rail; and a sinister muttered “It may be so,” ascended alongside from the black water.
Jörgenson kept silent as if waiting for a supreme inspiration and suddenly he spoke in his otherworld voice: “Tell Tengga from me that as long as he brings with him Rajah Hassim and the
