Part 40 (1/2)
”What state?” muttered Lingard to himself. ”I am what I am. They call me Rajah Laut, King Tom, and such like. I think it amused you to hear it, but I can tell you it is no joke to have such names fastened on one, even in fun. And those very names have in them something which makes all this affair here no small matter to anybody.”
She stood before him with a set, severe face.--”Did you call me out in this alarming manner only to quarrel with me?”--”No, but why do you choose this time to tell me that my coming for help to you was nothing but impudence in your sight? Well, I beg your pardon for intruding on your dignity.”--”You misunderstood me,” said Mrs. Travers, without relaxing for a moment her contemplative severity. ”Such a flattering thing had never happened to me before and it will never happen to me again. But believe me, King Tom, you did me too much honour. Jorgenson is perfectly right in being angry with you for having taken a woman in tow.”--”He didn't mean to be rude,” protested Lingard, earnestly. Mrs.
Travers didn't even smile at this intrusion of a point of manners into the atmosphere of anguish and suspense that seemed always to arise between her and this man who, sitting on the sea-chest, had raised his eyes to her with an air of extreme candour and seemed unable to take them off again. She continued to look at him sternly by a tremendous effort of will.
”How changed you are,” he murmured.
He was lost in the depths of the simplest wonder. She appeared to him vengeful and as if turned forever into stone before his bewildered remorse. Forever. Suddenly Mrs. Travers looked round and sat down in the chair. Her strength failed her but she remained austere with her hands resting on the arms of her seat. Lingard sighed deeply and dropped his eyes. She did not dare relax her muscles for fear of breaking down altogether and betraying a reckless impulse which lurked at the bottom of her dismay, to seize the head of d'Alcacer's Man of Fate, press it to her breast once, fling it far away, and vanish herself, vanish out of life like a wraith. The Man of Fate sat silent and bowed, yet with a suggestion of strength in his dejection. ”If I don't speak,” Mrs.
Travers said to herself, with great inward calmness, ”I shall burst into tears.” She said aloud, ”What could have happened? What have you dragged me in here for? Why don't you tell me your news?”
”I thought you didn't want to hear. I believe you really don't want to.
What is all this to you? I believe that you don't care anything about what I feel, about what I do and how I end. I verily believe that you don't care how you end yourself. I believe you never cared for your own or anybody's feelings. I don't think it is because you are hard, I think it is because you don't know, and don't want to know, and are angry with life.”
He flourished an arm recklessly, and Mrs. Travers noticed for the first time that he held a sheet of paper in his hand.
”Is that your news there?” she asked, significantly. ”It's difficult to imagine that in this wilderness writing can have any significance. And who on earth here could send you news on paper? Will you let me see it?
Could I understand it? Is it in English? Come, King Tom, don't look at me in this awful way.”
She got up suddenly, not in indignation, but as if at the end of her endurance. The jewelled clasps, the gold embroideries, gleamed elusively amongst the folds of her draperies which emitted a mysterious rustle.
”I can't stand this,” she cried. ”I can't stand being looked at like this. No woman could stand it. No woman has ever been looked at like this. What can you see? Hatred I could understand. What is it you think me capable of?”
”You are very extraordinary,” murmured Lingard, who had regained his self-possession before that outburst.
”Very well, and you are extraordinary, too. That's understood--here we are both under that curse and having to face together whatever may turn up. But who on earth could have sent you this writing?”
”Who?” repeated Lingard. ”Why, that young fellow that blundered on my brig in the dark, bringing a boatload of trouble alongside on that quiet night in Carimata Straits. The darkest night I have ever known. An accursed night.”
Mrs. Travers bit her lip, waited a little, then asked quietly:
”What difficulty has he got into now?”
”Difficulty!” cried Lingard. ”He is immensely pleased with himself, the young fool. You know, when you sent him to talk to me that evening you left the yacht, he came with a loaded pistol in his pocket. And now he has gone and done it.”
”Done it?” repeated Mrs. Travers blankly. ”Done what?”
She s.n.a.t.c.hed from Lingard's unresisting palm the sheet of paper. While she was smoothing it Lingard moved round and stood close at her elbow.
She ran quickly over the first lines, then her eyes steadied. At the end she drew a quick breath and looked up at Lingard. Their faces had never been so close together before and Mrs. Travers had a surprising second of a perfectly new sensation. She looked away.--”Do you understand what this news means?” he murmured. Mrs. Travers let her hand fall by her side. ”Yes,” she said in a low tone. ”The compact is broken.”
Carter had begun his letter without any preliminaries:
You cleared out in the middle of the night and took the lady away with you. You left me no proper orders. But as a sailorman I looked upon myself as left in charge of two s.h.i.+ps while within half a mile on that sandbank there were more than a hundred piratical cut-throats watching me as closely as so many tigers about to leap. Days went by without a word of you or the lady. To leave the s.h.i.+ps outside and go inland to look for you was not to be thought of with all those pirates within springing distance. Put yourself in my place. Can't you imagine my anxiety, my sleepless nights? Each night worse than the night before.
And still no word from you. I couldn't sit still and worry my head off about things I couldn't understand. I am a sailorman. My first duty was to the s.h.i.+ps. I had to put an end to this impossible situation and I hope you will agree that I have done it in a seamanlike way. One misty morning I moved the brig nearer the sandbank and directly the mist cleared I opened fire on the praus of those savages which were anch.o.r.ed in the channel. We aimed wide at first to give those vagabonds that were on board a chance to clear out and join their friends camped on the sands. I didn't want to kill people. Then we got the long gun to bear and in about an hour we had the bottom knocked out of the two praus. The savages on the bank howled and screamed at every shot. They are mighty angry but I don't care for their anger now, for by sinking their praus I have made them as harmless as a flock of lambs. They needn't starve on their sandbank because they have two or three dugouts hauled up on the sand and they may ferry themselves and their women to the mainland whenever they like.
I fancy I have acted as a seaman and as a seaman I intend to go on acting. Now I have made the s.h.i.+ps safe I shall set about without loss of time trying to get the yacht off the mud. When that's done I shall arm the boats and proceed insh.o.r.e to look for you and the yacht's gentry, and shan't rest till I know whether any or all of you are above the earth yet.
I hope these words will reach you. Just as we had done the business of those praus the man you sent off that night in Carimata to stop our chief officer came sailing in from the west with our first gig in tow and the boat's crew all well. Your serang tells me he is a most trustworthy messenger and that his name is Jaffir. He seems only too anxious to try to get to you as soon as possible. I repeat, s.h.i.+ps and men have been made safe and I don't mean to give you up dead or alive.
”You are quick in taking the point,” said Lingard in a dull voice, while Mrs. Travers, with the sheet of paper gripped in her hand, looked into his face with anxious eyes. ”He has been smart and no mistake.”
”He didn't know,” murmured Mrs. Travers.