Part 50 (2/2)

She stopped for a moment and freed her lips. In the profound stillness of the courtyard her clear voice made the shadows at the nearest fires stir a little with low murmurs of surprise.

”Oh, yes, I remember whose heads I have to save,” she cried. ”But in all the world who is there to save that man from himself?”

V

D'Alcacer sat down on the bench again. ”I wonder what she knows,” he thought, ”and I wonder what I have done.” He wondered also how far he had been sincere and how far affected by a very natural aversion from being murdered obscurely by ferocious Moors with all the circ.u.mstances of barbarity. It was a very naked death to come upon one suddenly. It was robbed of all helpful illusions, such as the free will of a suicide, the heroism of a warrior, or the exaltation of a martyr. ”Hadn't I better make some sort of fight of it?” he debated with himself. He saw himself rus.h.i.+ng at the naked spears without any enthusiasm. Or wouldn't it be better to go forth to meet his doom (somewhere outside the stockade on that horrible beach) with calm dignity. ”Pah! I shall be probably speared through the back in the beastliest possible fas.h.i.+on,”

he thought with an inward shudder. It was certainly not a shudder of fear, for Mr. d'Alcacer attached no high value to life. It was a shudder of disgust because Mr. d'Alcacer was a civilized man and though he had no illusions about civilization he could not but admit the superiority of its methods. It offered to one a certain refinement of form, a comeliness of proceedings and definite safeguards against deadly surprises. ”How idle all this is,” he thought, finally. His next thought was that women were very resourceful. It was true, he went on meditating with unwonted cynicism, that strictly speaking they had only one resource but, generally, it served--it served.

He was surprised by his supremely shameless bitterness at this juncture.

It was so uncalled for. This situation was too complicated to be entrusted to a cynical or shameless hope. There was nothing to trust to.

At this moment of his meditation he became aware of Lingard's approach.

He raised his head eagerly. D'Alcacer was not indifferent to his fate and even to Mr. Travers' fate. He would fain learn. . . . But one look at Lingard's face was enough. ”It's no use asking him anything,” he said to himself, ”for he cares for nothing just now.”

Lingard sat down heavily on the other end of the bench, and d'Alcacer, looking at his profile, confessed to himself that this was the most masculinely good-looking face he had ever seen in his life. It was an expressive face, too, but its present expression was also beyond d'Alcacer's past experience. At the same time its quietness set up a barrier against common curiosities and even common fears. No, it was no use asking him anything. Yet something should be said to break the spell, to call down again this man to the earth. But it was Lingard who spoke first. ”Where has Mrs. Travers gone?”

”She has gone . . . where naturally she would be anxious to go first of all since she has managed to come to us,” answered d'Alcacer, wording his answer with the utmost regard for the delicacy of the situation.

The stillness of Lingard seemed to have grown even more impressive. He spoke again.

”I wonder what those two can have to say to each other.”

He might have been asking that of the whole darkened part of the globe, but it was d'Alcacer who answered in his courteous tones.

”Would it surprise you very much, Captain Lingard, if I were to tell you that those two people are quite fit to understand each other thoroughly?

Yes? It surprises you! Well, I a.s.sure you that seven thousand miles from here n.o.body would wonder.”

”I think I understand,” said Lingard, ”but don't you know the man is light-headed? A man like that is as good as mad.”

”Yes, he had been slightly delirious since seven o'clock,” said d'Alcacer. ”But believe me, Captain Lingard,” he continued, earnestly, and obeying a perfectly disinterested impulse, ”that even in his delirium he is far more understandable to her and better able to understand her than . . . anybody within a hundred miles from here.”

”Ah!” said Lingard without any emotion, ”so you don't wonder. You don't see any reason for wonder.”

”No, for, don't you see, I do know.”

”What do you know?”

”Men and women, Captain Lingard, which you. . . .”

”I don't know any woman.”

”You have spoken the strictest truth there,” said d'Alcacer, and for the first time Lingard turned his head slowly and looked at his neighbour on the bench.

”Do you think she is as good as mad, too?” asked Lingard in a startled voice.

D'Alcacer let escape a low exclamation. No, certainly he did not think so. It was an original notion to suppose that lunatics had a sort of common logic which made them understandable to each other. D'Alcacer tried to make his voice as gentle as possible while he pursued: ”No, Captain Lingard, I believe the woman of whom we speak is and will always remain in the fullest possession of herself.”

Lingard, leaning back, clasped his hands round his knees. He seemed not to be listening and d'Alcacer, pulling a cigarette case out of his pocket, looked for a long time at the three cigarettes it contained. It was the last of the provision he had on him when captured. D'Alcacer had put himself on the strictest allowance. A cigarette was only to be lighted on special occasions; and now there were only three left and they had to be made to last till the end of life. They calmed, they soothed, they gave an att.i.tude. And only three left! One had to be kept for the morning, to be lighted before going through the gate of doom--the gate of Belarab's stockade. A cigarette soothed, it gave an att.i.tude. Was this the fitting occasion for one of the remaining two?

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