Part 57 (1/2)

”The very watchmen are asleep,” said d'Alcacer.

”There is nothing secret in this expedition, but I prefer not to call any one. Perhaps you wouldn't mind pulling me off yourself in our small boat.”

It seemed to her that d'Alcacer showed some hesitation. She added: ”It has no importance, you know.”

He bowed his a.s.sent and preceded her down the side in silence. When she entered the boat he had the sculls ready and directly she sat down he shoved off. It was so dark yet that but for the brig's yard-arm light he could not have kept his direction. He pulled a very deliberate stroke, looking over his shoulder frequently. It was Mrs. Travers who saw first the faint gleam of the uncovered sandspit on the black, quiet water.

”A little more to the left,” she said. ”No, the other way. . . .”

D'Alcacer obeyed her directions but his stroke grew even slower than before. She spoke again. ”Don't you think that the uttermost farthing should always be paid, Mr. d'Alcacer?”

D'Alcacer glanced over his shoulder, then: ”It would be the only honourable way. But it may be hard. Too hard for our common fearful hearts.”

”I am prepared for anything.”

He ceased pulling for a moment . . . ”Anything that may be found on a sandbank,” Mrs. Travers went on. ”On an arid, insignificant, and deserted sandbank.”

D'Alcacer gave two strokes and ceased again.

”There is room for a whole world of suffering on a sandbank, for all the bitterness and resentment a human soul may be made to feel.”

”Yes, I suppose you would know,” she whispered while he gave a stroke or two and again glanced over his shoulder. She murmured the words:

”Bitterness, resentment,” and a moment afterward became aware of the keel of the boat running up on the sand. But she didn't move, and d'Alcacer, too, remained seated on the thwart with the blades of his sculls raised as if ready to drop them and back the dinghy out into deep water at the first sign.

Mrs. Travers made no sign, but she asked, abruptly: ”Mr. d'Alcacer, do you think I shall ever come back?”

Her tone seemed to him to lack sincerity. But who could tell what this abruptness covered--sincere fear or mere vanity? He asked himself whether she was playing a part for his benefit, or only for herself.

”I don't think you quite understand the situation, Mrs. Travers. I don't think you have a clear idea, either of his simplicity or of his visionary's pride.”

She thought, contemptuously, that there were other things which d'Alcacer didn't know and surrendered to a sudden temptation to enlighten him a little.

”You forget his capacity for pa.s.sion and that his simplicity doesn't know its own strength.”

There was no mistaking the sincerity of that murmur. ”She has felt it,”

d'Alcacer said to himself with absolute cert.i.tude. He wondered when, where, how, on what occasion? Mrs. Travers stood up in the stern sheets suddenly and d'Alcacer leaped on the sand to help her out of the boat.

”Hadn't I better hang about here to take you back again?” he suggested, as he let go her hand.

”You mustn't!” she exclaimed, anxiously. ”You must return to the yacht.

There will be plenty of light in another hour. I will come to this spot and wave my handkerchief when I want to be taken off.”

At their feet the shallow water slept profoundly, the ghostly gleam of the sands baffled the eye by its lack of form. Far off, the growth of bushes in the centre raised a ma.s.sive black bulk against the stars to the southward. Mrs. Travers lingered for a moment near the boat as if afraid of the strange solitude of this lonely sandbank and of this lone sea that seemed to fill the whole encircling universe of remote stars and limitless shadows. ”There is n.o.body here,” she whispered to herself.

”He is somewhere about waiting for you, or I don't know the man,”

affirmed d'Alcacer in an undertone. He gave a vigorous shove which sent the little boat into the water.

D'Alcacer was perfectly right. Lingard had come up on deck long before Mrs. Travers woke up with her face wet with tears. The burial party had returned hours before and the crew of the brig were plunged in sleep, except for two watchmen, who at Lingard's appearance retreated noiselessly from the p.o.o.p. Lingard, leaning on the rail, fell into a sombre reverie of his past. Reproachful spectres crowded the air, animated and vocal, not in the articulate language of mortals but a.s.sailing him with faint sobs, deep sighs, and fateful gestures. When he came to himself and turned about they vanished, all but one dark shape without sound or movement. Lingard looked at it with secret horror.