“And the brig?” asked Lingard, suddenly.
Shaw was checked. For a second the seaman in him instinctively admitted the claim of the ship.
“The brig. The brig. She’s right enough,” he mumbled. He had nothing to say against the brig—not he. She wasn’t like the big ships he was used to, but of her kind the best craft he ever. … And with a brusque return upon himself, he protested that he had been decoyed on board under false pretences. It was as bad as being shanghaied when in liquor. It was—upon his soul. And into a craft next thing to a pirate! That was the name for it or his own name was not Shaw. He said this glaring owlishly. Lingard, perfectly still and mute, bore the blows without a sign.
The silly fuss of that man seared his very soul. There was no end to this plague of fools coming to him from the forgotten ends of the earth. A fellow like that could not be told. No one could be told. Blind they came and blind they would go out. He admitted reluctantly, but without doubt, that as if pushed by a force from outside he would have to try and save two of them. To this end he foresaw the probable need of leaving his brig for a time. He would have to leave her with that man. The mate. He had engaged him himself—to make his insurance valid—to be able sometimes to speak—to have near him. Who would have believed such a fool-man could exist on the face of the sea! Who? Leave the brig with him. The brig!
Ever since sunset, the breeze kept off by the heat of the day had been trying to reestablish in the darkness its sway over the Shoals. Its approaches had been heard in the night, its patient murmurs, its foiled sighs; but now a surprisingly heavy puff came in a free rush as if, far away there to the northward, the last defence of the calm had been victoriously carried. The flames borne down streamed bluishly, horizontal and noisy at the end of tall sticks, like fluttering pennants; and behold, the shadows on the deck went mad and jostled each other as if trying to escape from a doomed craft, the darkness, held up dome-like by the brilliant glare, seemed to tumble headlong upon the brig in an overwhelming downfall, the men stood swaying as if ready to fall under the ruins of a black and noiseless disaster. The blurred outlines of the brig, the masts, the rigging, seemed to shudder in the terror of coming extinction—and then the darkness leaped upward again, the shadows returned to their places, the men were seen distinct, swarthy, with calm faces, with glittering eyeballs. The destruction in the breath had passed, was gone.
A discord of three voices raised together in a drawling wail trailed on the sudden immobility of the air.
“Brig ahoy! Give us a rope!”
The first boatload from the yacht emerged floating slowly into the pool of purple light wavering round the brig on the black water. Two men squeezed in the bows pulled uncomfortably; in the middle, on a heap of seamen’s canvas bags, another sat, insecure, propped with both arms, stiff-legged, angularly helpless. The light from the poop brought everything out in lurid detail, and the boat floating slowly toward the brig had a suspicious and pitiful aspect. The shabby load lumbering her looked somehow as if it had been stolen by those men who resembled castaways. In the sternsheets Carter, standing up, steered with his leg. He had a smile of youthful sarcasm.
“Here they are!” he cried to Lingard. “You’ve got your own way, Captain. I thought I had better come myself with the first precious lot—”
“Pull around the stern. The brig’s on the swing,” interrupted Lingard.
“Aye, aye! We’ll try not to smash the brig. We would be lost indeed if—fend off there, John; fend off, old reliable, if you care a pin for your salty hide. I like the old chap,” he said, when he stood by Lingard’s side looking down at the boat which was being rapidly cleared by whites and Malays working shoulder to shoulder in silence. “I like him. He don’t belong to that yachting lot either. They picked him up on the road somewhere. Look at the old dog—carved out of a ship’s timber—as talkative as a fish—grim as a gutted wreck. That’s the man for me. All the others there are married, or going to be, or ought to be, or sorry they ain’t. Every man jack of them has a petticoat in tow—dash me! Never heard in all my travels such a jabber about wives and kids. Hurry up with your dunnage—below there! Aye! I had no difficulty in getting them to clear out from the yacht. They never saw a pair of gents stolen before—you understand. It upset all their little notions of what a stranding means, hereabouts. Not that mine aren’t mixed a bit, too—and yet I’ve seen a thing or two.”
His excitement was revealed in this boyish impulse to talk.
“Look,” he said, pointing at the growing pile of bags and bedding on the brig’s quarterdeck. “Look. Don’t they mean to sleep soft—and dream of home—maybe. Home. Think of that, Captain. These chaps can’t get clear away from it. It isn’t like you
