A profound silence succeeded. It was clear that the envoy was gone, keeping in the shadow of the shore. Jörgenson turned to Jaffir.
“Death amongst friends is but a festival,” he quoted, mumbling in his moustache.
“It is, by Allah,” assented Jaffir with sombre fervour.
VI
Thirty-six hours later Carter, alone with Lingard in the cabin of the brig, could almost feel during a pause in his talk the oppressive, the breathless peace of the Shallows awaiting another sunset.
“I never expected to see any of you alive,” Carter began in his easy tone, but with much less carelessness in his bearing as though his days of responsibility amongst the Shoals of the Shore of Refuge had matured his view of the external world and of his own place therein.
“Of course not,” muttered Lingard.
The listlessness of that man whom he had always seen acting under the stress of a secret passion seemed perfectly appalling to Carter’s youthful and deliberate energy. Ever since he had found himself again face to face with Lingard he had tried to conceal the shocking impression with a delicacy which owed nothing to training but was as intuitive as a child’s.
While justifying to Lingard his manner of dealing with the situation on the Shore of Refuge, he could not for the life of him help asking himself what was this new mystery. He was also young enough to long for a word of commendation.
“Come, Captain,” he argued; “how would you have liked to come out and find nothing but two half-burnt wrecks stuck on the sands—perhaps?”
He waited for a moment, then in sheer compassion turned away his eyes from that fixed gaze, from that harassed face with sunk cheeks, from that figure of indomitable strength robbed of its fire. He said to himself: “He doesn’t hear me,” and raised his voice without altering its self-contained tone:
“I was below yesterday morning when we felt the shock, but the noise came to us only as a deep rumble. I made one jump for the companion but that precious Shaw was before me yelling, ‘Earthquake! Earthquake!’ and I am hanged if he didn’t miss his footing and land down on his head at the bottom of the stairs. I had to stop to pick him up but I got on deck in time to see a mighty black cloud that seemed almost solid pop up from behind the forest like a balloon. It stayed there for quite a long time. Some of our Calashes on deck swore to me that they had seen a red flash above the treetops. But that’s hard to believe. I guessed at once that something had blown up on shore. My first thought was that I would never see you any more and I made up my mind at once to find out all the truth you have been keeping away from me. No, sir! Don’t you make a mistake! I wasn’t going to give you up, dead or alive.”
He looked hard at Lingard while saying these words and saw the first sign of animation pass over that ravaged face. He saw even its lips move slightly; but there was no sound, and Carter looked away again.
“Perhaps you would have done better by telling me everything; but you left me behind on my own to be your man here. I put my hand to the work I could see before me. I am a sailor. There were two ships to look after. And here they are both for you, fit to go or to stay, to fight or to run, as you choose.” He watched with bated breath the effort Lingard had to make to utter the two words of the desired commendation:
“Well done!”
“And I am your man still,” Carter added, impulsively, and hastened to look away from Lingard, who had tried to smile at him and had failed. Carter didn’t know what to do next, remain in the cabin or leave that unsupported strong man to himself. With a shyness completely foreign to his character and which he could not understand himself, he suggested in an engaging murmur and with an embarrassed assumption of his right to give advice:
“Why not lie down for a bit, sir? I can attend to anything that may turn up. You seem done up, sir.”
He was facing Lingard, who stood on the other side of the table in a leaning forward attitude propped up on rigid arms and stared fixedly at him—perhaps? Carter felt on the verge of despair. This couldn’t last. He was relieved to see Lingard shake his head slightly.
“No, Mr. Carter. I think I will go on deck,” said the Captain of the famous brig Lightning, while his eyes roamed all over the cabin. Carter stood aside at once, but it was some little time before Lingard made a move.
The sun had sunk already, leaving that evening no trace of its glory on a sky clear as crystal and on the waters without a ripple. All colour seemed to have gone out of the world. The oncoming shadow rose as subtle as a perfume from the black coast lying athwart the eastern semicircle; and such was the silence within the horizon that one might have fancied oneself come to the end of time. Black and toy-like in the clear depths and the final stillness of the evening the brig and the schooner lay anchored in the middle of the main channel with their heads swung the same way. Lingard, with his chin on his breast and his arms folded, moved slowly here and there about the poop. Close and mute like his shadow, Carter, at his elbow, followed his movements. He felt an anxious solicitude. …
It was a sentiment perfectly new to him. He had never before felt this sort of solicitude about
