Part 45 (1/2)

PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH

I

”Have you got King Tom's watch in there?” said a voice that seemed not to attach the slightest importance to the question. Jorgenson, outside the door of Mrs. Travers' part of the deckhouse, waited for the answer.

He heard a low cry very much like a moan, the startled sound of pain that may be sometimes heard in sick rooms. But it moved him not at all.

He would never have dreamt of opening the door unless told to do so, in which case he would have beheld, with complete indifference, Mrs.

Travers extended on the floor with her head resting on the edge of the camp bedstead (on which Lingard had never slept), as though she had subsided there from a kneeling posture which is the att.i.tude of prayer, supplication, or defeat. The hours of the night had pa.s.sed Mrs. Travers by. After flinging herself on her knees, she didn't know why, since she could think of nothing to pray for, had nothing to invoke, and was too far gone for such a futile thing as despair, she had remained there till the sense of exhaustion had grown on her to the point in which she lost her belief in her power to rise. In a half-sitting att.i.tude, her head resting against the edge of the couch and her arms flung above her head, she sank into an indifference, the mere resignation of a worn-out body and a worn-out mind which often is the only sort of rest that comes to people who are desperately ill and is welcome enough in a way. The voice of Jorgenson roused her out of that state. She sat up, aching in every limb and cold all over.

Jorgenson, behind the door, repeated with lifeless obstinacy:

”Do you see King Tom's watch in there?”

Mrs. Travers got up from the floor. She tottered, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the air, and found the back of the armchair under her hand.

”Who's there?”

She was also ready to ask: ”Where am I?” but she remembered and at once became the prey of that active dread which had been lying dormant for a few hours in her uneasy and prostrate body. ”What time is it?” she faltered out.

”Dawn,” p.r.o.nounced the imperturbable voice at the door. It seemed to her that it was a word that could make any heart sink with apprehension.

Dawn! She stood appalled. And the toneless voice outside the door insisted:

”You must have Tom's watch there!”

”I haven't seen it,” she cried as if tormented by a dream.

”Look in that desk thing. If you push open the shutter you will be able to see.”

Mrs. Travers became aware of the profound darkness of the cabin.

Jorgenson heard her staggering in there. After a moment a woman's voice, which struck even him as strange, said in faint tones:

”I have it. It's stopped.”

”It doesn't matter. I don't want to know the time. There should be a key about. See it anywhere?”

”Yes, it's fastened to the watch,” the dazed voice answered from within.

Jorgenson waited before making his request. ”Will you pa.s.s it out to me?

There's precious little time left now!”

The door flew open, which was certainly something Jorgenson had not expected. He had expected but a hand with the watch protruded through a narrow crack, But he didn't start back or give any other sign of surprise at seeing Mrs. Travers fully dressed. Against the faint clearness in the frame of the open shutter she presented to him the dark silhouette of her shoulders surmounted by a sleek head, because her hair was still in the two plaits. To Jorgenson Mrs. Travers in her un-European dress had always been displeasing, almost monstrous. Her stature, her gestures, her general carriage struck his eye as absurdly incongruous with a Malay costume, too ample, too free, too bold--offensive. To Mrs. Travers, Jorgenson, in the dusk of the pa.s.sage, had the aspect of a dim white ghost, and he chilled her by his ghost's aloofness.

He picked up the watch from her outspread palm without a word of thanks, only mumbling in his moustache, ”H'm, yes, that's it. I haven't yet forgotten how to count seconds correctly, but it's better to have a watch.”

She had not the slightest notion what he meant. And she did not care.

Her mind remained confused and the sense of bodily discomfort oppressed her. She whispered, shamefacedly, ”I believe I've slept.”

”I haven't,” mumbled Jorgenson, growing more and more distinct to her eyes. The brightness of the short dawn increased rapidly as if the sun were impatient to look upon the Settlement. ”No fear of that,” he added, boastfully.

It occurred to Mrs. Travers that perhaps she had not slept either. Her state had been more like an imperfect, half-conscious, quivering death.