Part 28 (1/2)

Ha.s.sim, lounging with his back against the closed door, kept his eye on him watchfully and Immada's dark and sorrowful eyes rested on the face of the white woman. Mrs. Travers felt as though she were engaged in a contest with them; in a struggle for the possession of that man's strength and of that man's devotion. When she looked up at Lingard she saw on his face--which should have been impa.s.sive or exalted, the face of a stern leader or the face of a pitiless dreamer--an expression of utter forgetfulness. He seemed to be tasting the delight of some profound and amazing sensation. And suddenly in the midst of her appeal to his generosity, in the middle of a phrase, Mrs. Travers faltered, becoming aware that she was the object of his contemplation.

”Do not! Do not look at that woman!” cried Immada. ”O! Master--look away. . . .” Ha.s.sim threw one arm round the girl's neck. Her voice sank.

”O! Master--look at us.” Ha.s.sim, drawing her to himself, covered her lips with his hand. She struggled a little like a snared bird and submitted, hiding her face on his shoulder, very quiet, sobbing without noise.

”What do they say to you?” asked Mrs. Travers with a faint and pained smile. ”What can they say? It is intolerable to think that their words which have no meaning for me may go straight to your heart. . . .”

”Look away,” whispered Lingard without making the slightest movement.

Mrs. Travers sighed.

”Yes, it is very hard to think that I who want to touch you cannot make myself understood as well as they. And yet I speak the language of your childhood, the language of the man for whom there is no hope but in your generosity.”

He shook his head. She gazed at him anxiously for a moment. ”In your memories then,” she said and was surprised by the expression of profound sadness that over-spread his attentive face.

”Do you know what I remember?” he said. ”Do you want to know?” She listened with slightly parted lips. ”I will tell you. Poverty, hard work--and death,” he went on, very quietly. ”And now I've told you, and you don't know. That's how it is between us. You talk to me--I talk to you--and we don't know.”

Her eyelids dropped.

”What can I find to say?” she went on. ”What can I do? I mustn't give in. Think! Amongst your memories there must be some face--some voice--some name, if nothing more. I can not believe that there is nothing but bitterness.”

”There's no bitterness,” he murmured.

”O! Brother, my heart is faint with fear,” whispered Immada. Lingard turned swiftly to that whisper.

”Then, they are to be saved,” exclaimed Mrs. Travers. ”Ah, I knew. . . .”

”Bear thy fear in patience,” said Ha.s.sim, rapidly, to his sister.

”They are to be saved. You have said it,” Lingard p.r.o.nounced aloud, suddenly. He felt like a swimmer who, in the midst of superhuman efforts to reach the sh.o.r.e, perceives that the undertow is taking him to sea. He would go with the mysterious current; he would go swiftly--and see the end, the fulfilment both blissful and terrible.

With this state of exaltation in which he saw himself in some incomprehensible way always victorious, whatever might befall, there was mingled a tenacity of purpose. He could not sacrifice his intention, the intention of years, the intention of his life; he could no more part with it and exist than he could cut out his heart and live. The adventurer held fast to his adventure which made him in his own sight exactly what he was.

He considered the problem with cool audacity, backed by a belief in his own power. It was not these two men he had to save; he had to save himself! And looked upon in this way the situation appeared familiar.

Ha.s.sim had told him the two white men had been taken by their captors to Daman's camp. The young Rajah, leaving his sister in the canoe, had landed on the sand and had crept to the very edge of light thrown by the fires by which the Illanuns were cooking. Daman was sitting apart by a larger blaze. Two praus rode in shallow water near the sandbank; on the ridge, a sentry walked watching the lights of the brig; the camp was full of quiet whispers. Ha.s.sim returned to his canoe, then he and his sister, paddling cautiously round the anch.o.r.ed praus, in which women's voices could be heard, approached the other end of the camp. The light of the big blaze there fell on the water and the canoe skirted it without a splash, keeping in the night. Ha.s.sim, landing for the second time, crept again close to the fires. Each prau had, according to the customs of the Illanun rovers when on a raiding expedition, a smaller war-boat and these being light and manageable were hauled up on the sand not far from the big blaze; they sat high on the shelving sh.o.r.e throwing heavy shadows. Ha.s.sim crept up toward the largest of them and then standing on tiptoe could look at the camp across the gunwales. The confused talking of the men was like the buzz of insects in a forest.

A child wailed on board one of the praus and a woman hailed the sh.o.r.e shrilly. Ha.s.sim unsheathed his kris and held it in his hand.

Very soon--he said--he saw the two white men walking amongst the fires.

They waved their arms and talked together, stopping from time to time; they approached Daman; and the short man with the hair on his face addressed him earnestly and at great length. Daman sat cross-legged upon a little carpet with an open Koran on his knees and chanted the versets swaying to and fro with his eyes shut.

The Illanun chiefs reclining wrapped in cloaks on the ground raised themselves on their elbows to look at the whites. When the short white man finished speaking he gazed down at them for a while, then stamped his foot. He looked angry because no one understood him. Then suddenly he looked very sad; he covered his face with his hands; the tall man put his hand on the short man's shoulder and whispered into his ear. The dry wood of the fires crackled, the Illanuns slept, cooked, talked, but with their weapons at hand. An armed man or two came up to stare at the prisoners and then returned to their fire. The two whites sank down in the sand in front of Daman. Their clothes were soiled, there was sand in their hair. The tall man had lost his hat; the gla.s.s in the eye of the short man glittered very much; his back was muddy and one sleeve of his coat torn up to the elbow.

All this Ha.s.sim saw and then retreated undetected to that part of the sh.o.r.e where Immada waited for him, keeping the canoe afloat. The Illanuns, trusting to the sea, kept very bad watch on their prisoners, and had he been able to speak with them Ha.s.sim thought an escape could have been effected. But they could not have understood his signs and still less his words. He consulted with his sister. Immada murmured sadly; at their feet the ripple broke with a mournful sound no louder than their voices.

Ha.s.sim's loyalty was unshaken, but now it led him on not in the bright light of hopes but in the deepened shadow of doubt. He wanted to obtain information for his friend who was so powerful and who perhaps would know how to be constant. When followed by Immada he approached the camp again--this time openly--their appearance did not excite much surprise.

It was well known to the Chiefs of the Illanuns that the Rajah for whom they were to fight--if G.o.d so willed--was upon the shoals looking out for the coming of the white man who had much wealth and a store of weapons and who was his servant. Daman, who alone understood the exact relation, welcomed them with impenetrable gravity. Ha.s.sim took his seat on the carpet at his right hand. A consultation was being held half-aloud in short and apparently careless sentences, with long intervals of silence between. Immada, nestling close to her brother, leaned one arm on his shoulder and listened with serious attention and with outward calm as became a princess of Wajo accustomed to consort with warriors and statesmen in moments of danger and in the hours of deliberation. Her heart was beating rapidly, and facing her the silent white men stared at these two known faces, as if across a gulf.

Four Illanun chiefs sat in a row. Their ample cloaks fell from their shoulders, and lay behind them on the sand in which their four long lances were planted upright, each supporting a small oblong s.h.i.+eld of wood, carved on the edges and stained a dull purple. Daman stretched out his arm and pointed at the prisoners. The faces of the white men were very quiet. Daman looked at them mutely and ardently, as if consumed by an unspeakable longing.

The Koran, in a silk cover, hung on his breast by a crimson cord. It rested over his heart and, just below, the plain buffalo-horn handle of a kris, stuck into the twist of his sarong, protruded ready to his hand.