“I see,” murmured Mrs. Travers. Lingard drew her gently to the rail.
“And now look over there at the other end of the beach where the shadows are heaviest. That is Belarab’s fort, his houses, his treasure, his dependents. That’s where the strength of the Settlement is. I kept it up. I made it last. But what is it now? It’s like a weapon in the hand of a dead man. And yet it’s all we have to look to, if indeed there is still time. I swear to you I wouldn’t dare land them in daylight for fear they should be slaughtered on the beach.”
“There is no time to lose,” whispered Mrs. Travers, and Lingard, too, spoke very low.
“No, not if I, too, am to keep what is my right. It’s you who have said it.”
“Yes, I have said it,” she whispered, without lifting her head. Lingard made a brusque movement at her elbow and bent his head close to her shoulder.
“And I who mistrusted you! Like Arabs do to their great men, I ought to kiss the hem of your robe in repentance for having doubted the greatness of your heart.”
“Oh! my heart!” said Mrs. Travers, lightly, still gazing at the fire, which had suddenly shot up to a tall blaze. “I can assure you it has been of very little account in the world.” She paused for a moment to steady her voice, then said, firmly, “Let’s get this over.”
“To tell you the truth the boat has been ready for some time.”
“Well, then. …”
“Mrs. Travers,” said Lingard with an effort, “they are people of your own kind.” And suddenly he burst out: “I cannot take them ashore bound hand and foot.”
“Mr. d’Alcacer knows. You will find him ready. Ever since the beginning he has been prepared for whatever might happen.”
“He is a man,” said Lingard with conviction. “But it’s of the other that I am thinking.”
“Ah, the other,” she repeated. “Then, what about my thoughts? Luckily we have Mr. d’Alcacer. I shall speak to him first.”
She turned away from the rail and moved toward the Cage.
“Jörgenson,” the voice of Lingard resounded all along the deck, “get a light on the gangway.” Then he followed Mrs. Travers slowly.
VI
D’Alcacer, after receiving his warning, stepped back and leaned against the edge of the table. He could not ignore in himself a certain emotion. And indeed, when he had asked Mrs. Travers for a sign he expected to be moved—but he had not expected the sign to come so soon. He expected this night to pass like other nights, in broken slumbers, bodily discomfort, and the unrest of disconnected thinking. At the same time he was surprised at his own emotion. He had flattered himself on the possession of more philosophy. He thought that this famous sense of self-preservation was a queer thing, a purely animal thing. “For, as a thinking man,” he reflected, “I really ought not to care.” It was probably the unusual that affected him. Clearly. If he had been lying seriously ill in a room in a hotel and had overheard some ominous whispers he would not have cared in the least. Ah, but then he would have been ill—and in illness one grows so indifferent. Illness is a great help to unemotional behaviour, which of course is the correct behaviour for a man of the world. He almost regretted he was not very ill. But, then, Mr. Travers was obviously ill and it did not seem to help him much. D’Alcacer glanced at the bedstead where Mr. Travers preserved an immobility which struck d’Alcacer as obviously affected. He mistrusted it. Generally he mistrusted Mr. Travers. One couldn’t tell what he would do next. Not that he could do much one way or another, but that somehow he threatened to rob the situation of whatever dignity it may have had as a stroke of fate, as a call on courage. Mr. d’Alcacer, acutely observant and alert for the slightest hints, preferred to look upon himself as the victim not of a swindle but of a rough man naively engaged in a contest with heaven’s injustice. D’Alcacer did not examine his heart, but some lines of a French poet came into his mind, to the effect that in all times those who fought with an unjust heaven had possessed the secret admiration and love of men. He didn’t go so far as love but he could not deny to himself that his feeling toward Lingard was secretly friendly and—well, appreciative. Mr. Travers sat up suddenly. What a horrible nuisance, thought d’Alcacer, fixing his eyes on the tips of his shoes with the hope that perhaps the other would lie down again. Mr. Travers spoke.
“Still up, d’Alcacer?”
“I assure you it isn’t late. It’s dark at six, we dined before seven, that makes the night long and I am not a very good sleeper; that is, I cannot go to sleep till late in the night.”
“I envy you,” said Mr. Travers, speaking with a sort of drowsy apathy. “I am always dropping off and the awakenings are horrible.”
D’Alcacer, raising his eyes, noticed that Mrs. Travers and Lingard had vanished from the light. They had gone to the rail where d’Alcacer could not see them. Some pity mingled with his vexation at Mr. Travers’ snatchy wakefulness. There was something weird about the man, he reflected. “Jörgenson,” he began aloud.
“What’s that?” snapped Mr. Travers.
“It’s the name of that lanky old storekeeper who is always about the decks.”
“I haven’t seen him. I don’t see anybody. I don’t know anybody. I prefer not
