Part 19 (2/2)
”That's why I thought I would tell you everything. I had to begin with this business about the boat. And what do you think of me now? I've cut you off from the rest of the earth. You people would disappear like a stone in the water. You left one foreign port for another. Who's there to trouble about what became of you? Who would know? Who could guess? It would be months before they began to stir.”
”I understand,” she said, steadily, ”we are helpless.”
”And alone,” he added.
After a pause she said in a deliberate, restrained voice:
”What does this mean? Plunder, captivity?”
”It would have meant death if I hadn't been here,” he answered.
”But you have the power to--”
”Why, do you think, you are alive yet?” he cried. ”Jorgenson has been arguing with them on sh.o.r.e,” he went on, more calmly, with a swing of his arm toward where the night seemed darkest. ”Do you think he would have kept them back if they hadn't expected me every day? His words would have been nothing without my fist.”
She heard a dull blow struck on the side of the yacht and concealed in the same darkness that wrapped the unconcern of the earth and sea, the fury and the pain of hearts; she smiled above his head, fascinated by the simplicity of images and expressions.
Lingard made a brusque movement, the lively little boat being unsteady under his feet, and she spoke slowly, absently, as if her thought had been lost in the vagueness of her sensations.
”And this--this--Jorgenson, you said? Who is he?”
”A man,” he answered, ”a man like myself.”
”Like yourself?”
”Just like myself,” he said with strange reluctance, as if admitting a painful truth. ”More sense, perhaps, but less luck. Though, since your yacht has turned up here, I begin to think that my luck is nothing much to boast of either.”
”Is our presence here so fatal?”
”It may be death to some. It may be worse than death to me. And it rests with you in a way. Think of that! I can never find such another chance again. But that's nothing! A man who has saved my life once and that I pa.s.sed my word to would think I had thrown him over. But that's nothing!
Listen! As true as I stand here in my boat talking to you, I believe the girl would die of grief.”
”You love her,” she said, softly.
”Like my own daughter,” he cried, low.
Mrs. Travers said, ”Oh!” faintly, and for a moment there was a silence, then he began again:
”Look here. When I was a boy in a trawler, and looked at you yacht people, in the Channel ports, you were as strange to me as the Malays here are strange to you. I left home sixteen years ago and fought my way all round the earth. I had the time to forget where I began. What are you to me against these two? If I was to die here on the spot would you care? No one would care at home. No one in the whole world--but these two.”
”What can I do?” she asked, and waited, leaning over.
He seemed to reflect, then lifting his head, spoke gently:
”Do you understand the danger you are in? Are you afraid?”
”I understand the expression you used, of course. Understand the danger?” she went on. ”No--decidedly no. And--honestly--I am not afraid.”
”Aren't you?” he said in a disappointed voice. ”Perhaps you don't believe me? I believed you, though, when you said you were sure I meant well. I trusted you enough to come here asking for your help--telling you what no one knows.”
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