The Rescue (15 page)

He thought:

"I must put an end to this preposterous hectoring. I won't be
intimidated into paying for services I don't need."

Mr. Travers felt a strong disgust for the impudence of the attempt; and
all at once, incredibly, strangely, as though the thing, like a contest
with a rival or a friend, had been of profound importance to his career,
he felt inexplicably elated at the thought of defeating the secret
purposes of that man.

Lingard, unconscious of everything and everybody, contemplated the sea.
He had grown on it, he had lived with it; it had enticed him away from
home; on it his thoughts had expanded and his hand had found work to do.
It had suggested endeavour, it had made him owner and commander of the
finest brig afloat; it had lulled him into a belief in himself, in
his strength, in his luck—and suddenly, by its complicity in a fatal
accident, it had brought him face to face with a difficulty that looked
like the beginning of disaster.

He had said all he dared to say—and he perceived that he was not
believed. This had not happened to him for years. It had never happened.
It bewildered him as if he had suddenly discovered that he was no longer
himself. He had come to them and had said: "I mean well by you. I am
Tom Lingard—" and they did not believe! Before such scepticism he was
helpless, because he had never imagined it possible. He had said: "You
are in the way of my work. You are in the way of what I can not give up
for any one; but I will see you through all safe if you will only
trust me—me, Tom Lingard." And they would not believe him! It was
intolerable. He imagined himself sweeping their disbelief out of his
way. And why not? He did not know them, he did not care for them, he
did not even need to lift his hand against them! All he had to do was to
shut his eyes now for a day or two, and afterward he could forget that
he had ever seen them. It would be easy. Let their disbelief vanish,
their folly disappear, their bodies perish. . . . It was that—or ruin!

Lingard's gaze, detaching itself from the silent sea, travelled slowly
over the silent figures clustering forward, over the faces of the seamen
attentive and surprised, over the faces never seen before yet suggesting
old days—his youth—other seas—the distant shores of early memories.
Mr. Travers gave a start also, and the hand which had been busy with
his left whisker went into the pocket of his jacket, as though he
had plucked out something worth keeping. He made a quick step toward
Lingard.

"I don't see my way to utilize your services," he said, with cold
finality.

Lingard, grasping his beard, looked down at him thoughtfully for a short
time.

"Perhaps it's just as well," he said, very slowly, "because I did not
offer my services. I've offered to take you on board my brig for a
few days, as your only chance of safety. And you asked me what were
my motives. My motives! If you don't see them they are not for you to
know."

And these men who, two hours before had never seen each other, stood
for a moment close together, antagonistic, as if they had been life-long
enemies, one short, dapper and glaring upward, the other towering
heavily, and looking down in contempt and anger.

Mr. d'Alcacer, without taking his eyes off them, bent low over the deck
chair.

"Have you ever seen a man dashing himself at a stone wall?" he asked,
confidentially.

"No," said Mrs. Travers, gazing straight before her above the slow
flutter of the fan. "No, I did not know it was ever done; men burrow
under or slip round quietly while they look the other way."

"Ah! you define diplomacy," murmured d'Alcacer. "A little of it here
would do no harm. But our picturesque visitor has none of it. I've a
great liking for him."

"Already!" breathed out Mrs. Travers, with a smile that touched her lips
with its bright wing and was flown almost before it could be seen.

"There is liking at first sight," affirmed d'Alcacer, "as well as love
at first sight—the coup de foudre—you know."

She looked up for a moment, and he went on, gravely: "I think it is the
truest, the most profound of sentiments. You do not love because of what
is in the other. You love because of something that is in you—something
alive—in yourself." He struck his breast lightly with the tip of one
finger. "A capacity in you. And not everyone may have it—not everyone
deserves to be touched by fire from heaven."

"And die," she said.

He made a slight movement.

"Who can tell? That is as it may be. But it is always a privilege, even
if one must live a little after being burnt."

Through the silence between them, Mr. Travers' voice came plainly,
saying with irritation:

"I've told you already that I do not want you. I've sent a messenger to
the governor of the Straits. Don't be importunate."

Then Lingard, standing with his back to them, growled out something
which must have exasperated Mr. Travers, because his voice was pitched
higher:

"You are playing a dangerous game, I warn you. Sir John, as it happens,
is a personal friend of mine. He will send a cruiser—" and Lingard
interrupted recklessly loud:

"As long as she does not get here for the next ten days, I don't care.
Cruisers are scarce just now in the Straits; and to turn my back on you
is no hanging matter anyhow. I would risk that, and more! Do you hear?
And more!"

He stamped his foot heavily, Mr. Travers stepped back.

"You will gain nothing by trying to frighten me," he said. "I don't know
who you are."

Every eye in the yacht was wide open. The men, crowded upon each
other, stared stupidly like a flock of sheep. Mr. Travers pulled out
a handkerchief and passed it over his forehead. The face of the
sailing-master who leaned against the main mast—as near as he dared
to approach the gentry—was shining and crimson between white whiskers,
like a glowing coal between two patches of snow.

D'Alcacer whispered:

"It is a quarrel, and the picturesque man is angry. He is hurt."

Mrs. Travers' fan rested on her knees, and she sat still as if waiting
to hear more.

"Do you think I ought to make an effort for peace?" asked d'Alcacer.

She did not answer, and after waiting a little, he insisted:

"What is your opinion? Shall I try to mediate—as a neutral, as a
benevolent neutral? I like that man with the beard."

The interchange of angry phrases went on aloud, amidst general
consternation.

"I would turn my back on you only I am thinking of these poor devils
here," growled Lingard, furiously. "Did you ask them how they feel about
it?"

"I ask no one," spluttered Mr. Travers. "Everybody here depends on my
judgment."

"I am sorry for them then," pronounced Lingard with sudden deliberation,
and leaning forward with his arms crossed on his breast.

At this Mr. Travers positively jumped, and forgot himself so far as to
shout:

"You are an impudent fellow. I have nothing more to say to you."

D'Alcacer, after muttering to himself, "This is getting serious," made a
movement, and could not believe his ears when he heard Mrs. Travers say
rapidly with a kind of fervour:

"Don't go, pray; don't stop them. Oh! This is truth—this is
anger—something real at last."

D'Alcacer leaned back at once against the rail.

Then Mr. Travers, with one arm extended, repeated very loudly:

"Nothing more to say. Leave my ship at once!"

And directly the black dog, stretched at his wife's feet, muzzle on
paws and blinking yellow eyes, growled discontentedly at the noise. Mrs.
Travers laughed a faint, bright laugh, that seemed to escape, to glide,
to dart between her white teeth. D'Alcacer, concealing his amazement,
was looking down at her gravely: and after a slight gasp, she said with
little bursts of merriment between every few words:

"No, but this is—such—such a fresh experience for me to hear—to see
something—genuine and human. Ah! ah! one would think they had waited
all their lives for this opportunity—ah! ah! ah! All their lives—for
this! ah! ah! ah!"

These strange words struck d'Alcacer as perfectly just, as throwing an
unexpected light. But after a smile, he said, seriously:

"This reality may go too far. A man who looks so picturesque is capable
of anything. Allow me—" And he left her side, moving toward Lingard,
loose-limbed and gaunt, yet having in his whole bearing, in his walk, in
every leisurely movement, an air of distinction and ceremony.

Lingard spun round with aggressive mien to the light touch on his
shoulder, but as soon as he took his eyes off Mr. Travers, his anger
fell, seemed to sink without a sound at his feet like a rejected
garment.

"Pardon me," said d'Alcacer, composedly. The slight wave of his hand was
hardly more than an indication, the beginning of a conciliating gesture.
"Pardon me; but this is a matter requiring perfect confidence on both
sides. Don Martin, here, who is a person of importance. . . ."

"I've spoken my mind plainly. I have said as much as I dare. On my word
I have," declared Lingard with an air of good temper.

"Ah!" said d'Alcacer, reflectively, "then your reserve is a matter of
pledged faith—of—of honour?"

Lingard also appeared thoughtful for a moment.

"You may put it that way. And I owe nothing to a man who couldn't see my
hand when I put it out to him as I came aboard."

"You have so much the advantage of us here," replied d'Alcacer, "that
you may well be generous and forget that oversight; and then just a
little more confidence. . . ."

"My dear d'Alcacer, you are absurd," broke in Mr. Travers, in a calm
voice but with white lips. "I did not come out all this way to shake
hands promiscuously and receive confidences from the first adventurer
that comes along."

D'Alcacer stepped back with an almost imperceptible inclination of the
head at Lingard, who stood for a moment with twitching face.

"I
am
an adventurer," he burst out, "and if I hadn't been an
adventurer, I would have had to starve or work at home for such people
as you. If I weren't an adventurer, you would be most likely lying dead
on this deck with your cut throat gaping at the sky."

Mr. Travers waved this speech away. But others also had heard. Carter
listened watchfully and something, some alarming notion seemed to dawn
all at once upon the thick little sailing-master, who rushed on his
short legs, and tugging at Carter's sleeve, stammered desperately:

"What's he saying? Who's he? What's up? Are the natives unfriendly? My
book says—'Natives friendly all along this coast!' My book says—"

Carter, who had glanced over the side, jerked his arm free.

"You go down into the pantry, where you belong, Skipper, and read that
bit about the natives over again," he said to his superior officer, with
savage contempt. "I'll be hanged if some of them ain't coming aboard now
to eat you—book and all. Get out of the way, and let the gentlemen have
the first chance of a row."

Then addressing Lingard, he drawled in his old way:

"That crazy mate of yours has sent your boat back, with a couple of
visitors in her, too."

Before he apprehended plainly the meaning of these words, Lingard caught
sight of two heads rising above the rail, the head of Hassim and the
head of Immada. Then their bodies ascended into view as though these two
beings had gradually emerged from the Shallows. They stood for a moment
on the platform looking down on the deck as if about to step into the
unknown, then descended and walking aft entered the half-light under the
awning shading the luxurious surroundings, the complicated emotions of
the, to them, inconceivable existences.

Lingard without waiting a moment cried:

"What news, O Rajah?"

Hassim's eyes made the round of the schooner's decks. He had left his
gun in the boat and advanced empty handed, with a tranquil assurance as
if bearing a welcome offering in the faint smile of his lips. Immada,
half hidden behind his shoulder, followed lightly, her elbows pressed
close to her side. The thick fringe of her eyelashes was dropped like
a veil; she looked youthful and brooding; she had an aspect of shy
resolution.

They stopped within arm's length of the whites, and for some time nobody
said a word. Then Hassim gave Lingard a significant glance, and uttered
rapidly with a slight toss of the head that indicated in a manner the
whole of the yacht:

"I see no guns!"

"N—no!" said Lingard, looking suddenly confused. It had occurred to him
that for the first time in two years or more he had forgotten, utterly
forgotten, these people's existence.

Immada stood slight and rigid with downcast eyes. Hassim, at his ease,
scrutinized the faces, as if searching for elusive points of similitude
or for subtle shades of difference.

"What is this new intrusion?" asked Mr. Travers, angrily.

"These are the fisher-folk, sir," broke in the sailing-master, "we've
observed these three days past flitting about in a canoe; but they
never had the sense to answer our hail; and yet a bit of fish for
your breakfast—" He smiled obsequiously, and all at once, without
provocation, began to bellow:

"Hey! Johnnie! Hab got fish? Fish! One peecee fish! Eh? Savee? Fish!
Fish—" He gave it up suddenly to say in a deferential tone—"Can't
make them savages understand anything, sir," and withdrew as if after a
clever feat.

Hassim looked at Lingard.

"Why did the little white man make that outcry?" he asked, anxiously.

"Their desire is to eat fish," said Lingard in an enraged tone.

Then before the air of extreme surprise which incontinently appeared on
the other's face, he could not restrain a short and hopeless laugh.

"Eat fish," repeated Hassim, staring. "O you white people! O you white
people! Eat fish! Good! But why make that noise? And why did you send
them here without guns?" After a significant glance down upon the slope
of the deck caused by the vessel being on the ground, he added with a
slight nod at Lingard—"And without knowledge?"