Part 26 (1/2)
”The tide has turned--you say, serang? Has it--? Well, perhaps it has, perhaps it has,” he finished, muttering to himself.
”Truly it has. Can not Tuan see it run under his own eyes?” said Wasub with an alarmed earnestness. ”Look. Now it is in my mind that a prau coming from amongst the southern islands, if steered cunningly in the free set of the current, would approach the bows of this, our brig, drifting silently as a shape without a substance.”
”And board suddenly--is that it?” said Lingard.
”Daman is crafty and the Illanuns are very bloodthirsty. Night is nothing to them. They are certainly valorous. Are they not born in the midst of fighting and are they not inspired by the evil of their hearts even before they can speak? And their chiefs would be leading them while you, Tuan, are going from us even now--”
”You don't want me to go?” asked Lingard.
For a time Wasub listened attentively to the profound silence.
”Can we fight without a leader?” he began again. ”It is the belief in victory that gives courage. And what would poor calashes do, sons of peasants and fishermen, freshly caught--without knowledge? They believe in your strength--and in your power--or else--Will those whites that came so suddenly avenge you? They are here like fish within the stakes.
Ya-wa! Who will bring the news and who will come to find the truth and perchance to carry off your body? You go alone, Tuan!”
”There must be no fighting. It would be a calamity,” insisted Lingard.
”There is blood that must not be spilt.”
”Hear, Tuan!” exclaimed Wasub with heat. ”The waters are running out now.” He punctuated his speech by slight jerks at the dinghy. ”The waters go and at the appointed time they shall return. And if between their going and coming the blood of all the men in the world were poured into it, the sea would not rise higher at the full by the breadth of my finger nail.”
”But the world would not be the same. You do not see that, serang. Give the boat a good shove.”
”Directly,” said the old Malay and his face became impa.s.sive. ”Tuan knows when it is best to go, and death sometimes retreats before a firm tread like a startled snake. Tuan should take a follower with him, not a silly youth, but one who has lived--who has a steady heart--who would walk close behind watchfully--and quietly. Yes. Quietly and with quick eyes--like mine--perhaps with a weapon--I know how to strike.”
Lingard looked at the wrinkled visage very near his own and into the peering old eyes. They shone strangely. A tense eagerness was expressed in the squatting figure leaning out toward him. On the other side, within reach of his arm, the night stood like a wall -discouraging--opaque--impenetrable. No help would avail. The darkness he had to combat was too impalpable to be cleft by a blow--too dense to be pierced by the eye; yet as if by some enchantment in the words that made this vain offer of fidelity, it became less overpowering to his sight, less crus.h.i.+ng to his thought. He had a moment of pride which soothed his heart for the s.p.a.ce of two beats. His unreasonable and misjudged heart, shrinking before the menace of failure, expanded freely with a sense of generous grat.i.tude. In the threatening dimness of his emotions this man's offer made a point of clearness, the glimmer of a torch held aloft in the night. It was priceless, no doubt, but ineffectual; too small, too far, too solitary. It did not dispel the mysterious obscurity that had descended upon his fortunes so that his eyes could no longer see the work of his hands. The sadness of defeat pervaded the world.
”And what could you do, O Wasub?” he said.
”I could always call out--'Take care, Tuan.'”
”And then for these charm-words of mine. Hey? Turn danger aside? What?
But perchance you would die all the same. Treachery is a strong magic, too--as you said.”
”Yes, indeed! The order might come to your servant. But I--Wasub--the son of a free man, a follower of Rajahs, a fugitive, a slave, a pilgrim--diver for pearls, serang of white men's s.h.i.+ps, I have had too many masters. Too many. You are the last.” After a silence he said in an almost indifferent voice: ”If you go, Tuan, let us go together.”
For a time Lingard made no sound.
”No use,” he said at last. ”No use, serang. One life is enough to pay for a man's folly--and you have a household.”
”I have two--Tuan; but it is a long time since I sat on the ladder of a house to talk at ease with neighbours. Yes. Two households; one in--”
Lingard smiled faintly. ”Tuan, let me follow you.”
”No. You have said it, serang--I am alone. That is true, and alone I shall go on this very night. But first I must bring all the white people here. Push.”
”Ready, Tuan? Look out!”
Wasub's body swung over the sea with extended arms. Lingard caught up the sculls, and as the dinghy darted away from the brig's side he had a complete view of the lighted p.o.o.p--Shaw leaning ma.s.sively over the taffrail in sulky dejection, the flare bearers erect and rigid, the heads along the rail, the eyes staring after him above the bulwarks. The fore-end of the brig was wrapped in a lurid and sombre mistiness; the sullen mingling of darkness and of light; her masts pointing straight up could be tracked by torn gleams and vanished above as if the trucks had been tall enough to pierce the heavy ma.s.s of vapours motionless overhead. She was beautifully precious. His loving eyes saw her floating at rest in a wavering halo, between an invisible sky and an invisible sea, like a miraculous craft suspended in the air. He turned his head away as if the sight had been too much for him at the moment of separation, and, as soon as his little boat had pa.s.sed beyond the limit of the light thrown upon the water, he perceived very low in the black void of the west the stern lantern of the yacht s.h.i.+ning feebly like a star about to set, unattainable, infinitely remote--belonging to another universe.