Part 11 (2/2)
He would shake his head without looking back--far away already.
Florid and burly he could be seen, for a day or two, getting out of dusty gharries, striding in suns.h.i.+ne from the Occidental Bank to the Harbour Office, crossing the Esplanade, disappearing down a street of Chinese shops, while at his elbow and as tall as himself, old Jorgenson paced along, lean and faded, obstinate and disregarded, like a haunting spirit from the past eager to step back into the life of men.
Lingard ignored this wreck of an adventurer, sticking to him closer than his shadow, and the other did not try to attract attention. He waited patiently at the doors of offices, would vanish at tiffin time, would invariably turn up again in the evening and then he kept his place till Lingard went aboard for the night. The police peons on duty looked disdainfully at the phantom of Captain H. C. Jorgenson, Barque Wild Rose, wandering on the silent quay or standing still for hours at the edge of the sombre roadstead speckled by the anchor lights of s.h.i.+ps--an adventurous soul longing to recross the waters of oblivion.
The sampan-men, sculling lazily homeward past the black hull of the brig at anchor, could hear far into the night the drawl of the New England voice escaping through the lifted panes of the cabin skylight. s.n.a.t.c.hes of nasal sentences floated in the stillness around the still craft.
”Yes, siree! Mexican war rifles--good as new--six in a case--my people in Baltimore--that's so. Hundred and twenty rounds thrown in for each specimen--marked to suit your requirements. Suppose--musical instruments, this side up with care--how's that for your taste? No, no!
Cash down--my people in Balt--Shooting sea-gulls you say? Waal! It's a risky business--see here--ten per cent. discount--it's out of my own pocket--”
As time wore on, and nothing happened, at least nothing that one could hear of, the excitement died out. Lingard's new att.i.tude was accepted as only ”his way.” There was nothing in it, maintained some. Others dissented. A good deal of curiosity, however, remained and the faint rumour of something big being in preparation followed him into every harbour he went to, from Rangoon to Hongkong.
He felt nowhere so much at home as when his brig was anch.o.r.ed on the inner side of the great stretch of shoals. The centre of his life had s.h.i.+fted about four hundred miles--from the Straits of Malacca to the Sh.o.r.e of Refuge--and when there he felt himself within the circle of another existence, governed by his impulse, nearer his desire. Ha.s.sim and Immada would come down to the coast and wait for him on the islet.
He always left them with regret.
At the end of the first stage in each trip, Jorgenson waited for him at the top of the boat-stairs and without a word fell into step at his elbow. They seldom exchanged three words in a day; but one evening about six months before Lingard's last trip, as they were crossing the short bridge over the ca.n.a.l where native craft lie moored in cl.u.s.ters, Jorgenson lengthened his stride and came abreast. It was a moonlight night and nothing stirred on earth but the shadows of high clouds.
Lingard took off his hat and drew in a long sigh in the tepid breeze.
Jorgenson spoke suddenly in a cautious tone: ”The new Rajah Tulla smokes opium and is sometimes dangerous to speak to. There is a lot of discontent in Wajo amongst the big people.”
”Good! Good!” whispered Lingard, excitedly, off his guard for once.
Then--”How the devil do you know anything about it?” he asked.
Jorgenson pointed at the ma.s.s of praus, coasting boats, and sampans that, jammed up together in the ca.n.a.l, lay covered with mats and flooded by the cold moonlight with here and there a dim lantern burning amongst the confusion of high sterns, spars, masts and lowered sails.
”There!” he said, as they moved on, and their hatted and clothed shadows fell heavily on the queer-shaped vessels that carry the fortunes of brown men upon a shallow sea. ”There! I can sit with them, I can talk to them, I can come and go as I like. They know me now--it's time-thirty-five years. Some of them give a plate of rice and a bit of fish to the white man. That's all I get--after thirty-five years--given up to them.”
He was silent for a time.
”I was like you once,” he added, and then laying his hand on Lingard's sleeve, murmured--”Are you very deep in this thing?”
”To the very last cent,” said Lingard, quietly, and looking straight before him.
The glitter of the roadstead went out, and the masts of anch.o.r.ed s.h.i.+ps vanished in the invading shadow of a cloud.
”Drop it,” whispered Jorgenson.
”I am in debt,” said Lingard, slowly, and stood still.
”Drop it!”
”Never dropped anything in my life.”
”Drop it!”
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