Part 8 (2/2)
Lingard and the young leader of the Wajo traders met in the splendid light of noonday, and amidst the attentive silence of their followers, on the very spot where the Malay seaman had lost his life. Lingard, striding up from one side, thrust out his open palm; Ha.s.sim responded at once to the frank gesture and they exchanged their first hand-clasp over the prostrate body, as if fate had already exacted the price of a death for the most ominous of her gifts--the gift of friends.h.i.+p that sometimes contains the whole good or evil of a life.
”I'll never forget this day,” cried Lingard in a hearty tone; and the other smiled quietly.
Then after a short pause--”Will you burn the village for vengeance?”
asked the Malay with a quick glance down at the dead Lascar who, on his face and with stretched arms, seemed to cling desperately to that earth of which he had known so little.
Lingard hesitated.
”No,” he said, at last. ”It would do good to no one.”
”True,” said Ha.s.sim, gently, ”but was this man your debtor--a slave?”
”Slave?” cried Lingard. ”This is an English brig. Slave? No. A free man like myself.”
”Hai. He is indeed free now,” muttered the Malay with another glance downward. ”But who will pay the bereaved for his life?”
”If there is anywhere a woman or child belonging to him, I--my serang would know--I shall seek them out,” cried Lingard, remorsefully.
”You speak like a chief,” said Ha.s.sim, ”only our great men do not go to battle with naked hands. O you white men! O the valour of you white men!”
”It was folly, pure folly,” protested Lingard, ”and this poor fellow has paid for it.”
”He could not avoid his destiny,” murmured the Malay. ”It is in my mind my trading is finished now in this place,” he added, cheerfully.
Lingard expressed his regret.
”It is no matter, it is no matter,” a.s.sured the other courteously, and after Lingard had given a pressing invitation for Ha.s.sim and his two companions of high rank to visit the brig, the two parties separated.
The evening was calm when the Malay craft left its berth near the sh.o.r.e and was rowed slowly across the bay to Lingard's anchorage. The end of a stout line was thrown on board, and that night the white man's brig and the brown man's prau swung together to the same anchor.
The sun setting to seaward shot its last rays between the headlands, when the body of the killed Lascar, wrapped up decently in a white sheet, according to Mohammedan usage, was lowered gently below the still waters of the bay upon which his curious glances, only a few hours before, had rested for the first time. At the moment the dead man, released from slip-ropes, disappeared without a ripple before the eyes of his s.h.i.+pmates, the bright flash and the heavy report of the brig's bow gun were succeeded by the muttering echoes of the encircling sh.o.r.es and by the loud cries of sea birds that, wheeling in clouds, seemed to scream after the departing seaman a wild and eternal good-bye. The master of the brig, making his way aft with hanging head, was followed by low murmurs of pleased surprise from his crew as well as from the strangers who crowded the main deck. In such acts performed simply, from conviction, what may be called the romantic side of the man's nature came out; that responsive sensitiveness to the shadowy appeals made by life and death, which is the groundwork of a chivalrous character.
Lingard entertained his three visitors far into the night. A sheep from the brig's sea stock was given to the men of the prau, while in the cabin, Ha.s.sim and his two friends, sitting in a row on the stern settee, looked very splendid with costly metals and flawed jewels. The talk conducted with hearty friends.h.i.+p on Lingard's part, and on the part of the Malays with the well-bred air of discreet courtesy, which is natural to the better cla.s.s of that people, touched upon many subjects and, in the end, drifted to politics.
”It is in my mind that you are a powerful man in your own country,” said Ha.s.sim, with a circular glance at the cuddy.
”My country is upon a far-away sea where the light breezes are as strong as the winds of the rainy weather here,” said Lingard; and there were low exclamations of wonder. ”I left it very young, and I don't know about my power there where great men alone are as numerous as the poor people in all your islands, Tuan Ha.s.sim. But here,” he continued, ”here, which is also my country--being an English craft and worthy of it, too--I am powerful enough. In fact, I am Rajah here. This bit of my country is all my own.”
The visitors were impressed, exchanged meaning glances, nodded at each other.
”Good, good,” said Ha.s.sim at last, with a smile. ”You carry your country and your power with you over the sea. A Rajah upon the sea. Good!”
Lingard laughed thunderously while the others looked amused.
”Your country is very powerful--we know,” began again Ha.s.sim after a pause, ”but is it stronger than the country of the Dutch who steal our land?”
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