Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (551 page)

IX

The letter went on to enlarge on the intrigues of Tengga, the wavering conduct of Belarab, and the state of the public mind. It noted every gust of opinion and every event, with an earnestness of belief in their importance befitting the chronicle of a crisis in the history of an empire. The shade of Jorgenson had, indeed, stepped back into the life of men. The old adventurer looked on with a perfect understanding of the value of trifles, using his eyes for that other man whose conscience would have the task to unravel the tangle. Lingard lived through those days in the Settlement and was thankful to Jorgenson; only as he lived not from day to day but from sentence to sentence of the writing, there was an effect of bewildering rapidity in the succession of events that made him grunt with surprise sometimes or growl — ”What?” to himself angrily and turn back several lines or a whole page more than once. Toward the end he had a heavy frown of perplexity and fidgeted as he read:

— and I began to think I could keep things quiet till you came or those wretched white people got their schooner off, when Sherif Daman arrived from the north on the very day he was expected, with two Illanun praus. He looks like an Arab. It was very evident to me he can wind the two Illanun pangerans round his little finger. The two praus are large and armed. They came up the creek, flags and streamers flying, beating drums and gongs, and entered the lagoon with their decks full of armed men brandishing two-handed swords and sounding the war cry. It is a fine force for you, only Belarab who is a perverse devil would not receive Sherif Daman at once. So Daman went to see Tengga who detained him a very long time. Leaving Tengga he came on board the Emma, and I could see directly there was something up.

He began by asking me for the ammunition and weapons they are to get from you, saying he was anxious to sail at once toward Wajo, since it was agreed he was to precede you by a few days. I replied that that was true enough but that I could not think of giving him the powder and muskets till you came. He began to talk about you and hinted that perhaps you will never come. “And no matter,” says he, “here is Rajah Hassim and the Lady Immada and we would fight for them if no white man was left in the world. Only we must have something to fight with.” He pretended then to forget me altogether and talked with Hassim while I sat listening. He began to boast how well he got along the Bruni coast. No Illanun prau had passed down that coast for years.

Immada wanted me to give the arms he was asking for. The girl is beside herself with fear of something happening that would put a stopper on the Wajo expedition. She has set her mind on getting her country back. Hassim is very reserved but he is very anxious, too. Daman got nothing from me, and that very evening the praus were ordered by Belarab to leave the lagoon. He does not trust the Illanuns — and small blame to him. Sherif Daman went like a lamb. He has no powder for his guns. As the praus passed by the Emma he shouted to me he was going to wait for you outside the creek. Tengga has given him a man who would show him the place. All this looks very queer to me.

Look out outside then. The praus are dodging amongst the islets. Daman visits Tengga. Tengga called on me as a good friend to try and persuade me to give Daman the arms and gunpowder he is so anxious to get. Somehow or other they tried to get around Belarab, who came to see me last night and hinted I had better do so. He is anxious for these Illanuns to leave the neighbourhood. He thinks that if they loot the schooner they will be off at once. That’s all he wants now. Immada has been to see Belarab’s women and stopped two nights in the stockade. Belarab’s youngest wife — he got married six weeks ago — is on the side of Tengga’s party because she thinks Belarab would get a share of the loot and she got into her silly head there are jewels and silks in that schooner. What between Tengga worrying him outside and the women worrying him at home, Belarab had such a lively time of it that he concluded he would go to pray at his father’s tomb. So for the last two days he has been away camping in that unhealthy place. When he comes back he will be down with fever as sure as fate and then he will be no good for anything. Tengga lights up smoky fires often. Some signal to Daman. I go ashore with Hassim’s men and put them out. This is risking a fight every time — for Tengga’s men look very black at us. I don’t know what the next move may be. Hassim’s as true as steel. Immada is very unhappy. They will tell you many details I have no time to write.

The last page fluttered on the table out of Lingard’s fingers. He sat very still for a moment looking straight before him, then went on deck.

“Our boats back yet?” he asked Shaw, whom he saw prowling on the quarter-deck.

“No, sir, I wish they were. I am waiting for them to go and turn in,” answered the mate in an aggrieved manner.

“Lower that lantern forward there,” cried Lingard, suddenly, in Malay.

“This trade isn’t fit for a decent man,” muttered Shaw to himself, and he moved away to lean on the rail, looking moodily to seaward. After a while: “There seems to be commotion on board that yacht,” he said. “I see a lot of lights moving about her decks. Anything wrong, do you think, sir?”

“No, I know what it is,” said Lingard in a tone of elation. She has done it! he thought.

He returned to the cabin, put away Jorgenson’s letter and pulled out the drawer of the table. It was full of cartridges. He took a musket down, loaded it, then took another and another. He hammered at the waddings with fierce joyousness. The ramrods rang and jumped. It seemed to him he was doing his share of some work in which that woman was playing her part faithfully. “She has done it,” he repeated, mentally. “She will sit in the cuddy. She will sleep in my berth. Well, I’m not ashamed of the brig. By heavens — no! I shall keep away: never come near them as I’ve promised. Now there’s nothing more to say. I’ve told her everything at once. There’s nothing more.”

He felt a heaviness in his burning breast, in all his limbs as if the blood in his veins had become molten lead.

“I shall get the yacht off. Three, four days — no, a week.”

He found he couldn’t do it under a week. It occurred to him he would see her every day till the yacht was afloat. No, he wouldn’t intrude, but he was master and owner of the brig after all. He didn’t mean to skulk like a whipped cur about his own decks.

“It’ll be ten days before the schooner is ready. I’ll take every scrap of ballast out of her. I’ll strip her — I’ll take her lower masts out of her, by heavens! I’ll make sure. Then another week to fit out — and — goodbye. Wish I had never seen them. Good-bye — forever. Home’s the place for them. Not for me. On another coast she would not have listened. Ah, but she is a woman — every inch of her. I shall shake hands. Yes. I shall take her hand — just before she goes. Why the devil not? I am master here after all — in this brig — as good as any one — by heavens, better than any one — better than any one on earth.”

He heard Shaw walk smartly forward above his head hailing:

“What’s that — a boat?”

A voice answered indistinctly.

“One of my boats is back,” thought Lingard. “News about Daman perhaps. I don’t care if he kicks. I wish he would. I would soon show her I can fight as well as I can handle the brig. Two praus. Only two praus. I wouldn’t mind if there were twenty. I would sweep ‘em off the sea — I would blow ‘em out of the water — I would make the brig walk over them. ‘Now,’ I’d say to her, ‘you who are not afraid, look how it’s done!’“

He felt light. He had the sensation of being whirled high in the midst of an uproar and as powerless as a feather in a hurricane. He shuddered profoundly. His arms hung down, and he stood before the table staring like a man overcome by some fatal intelligence.

Shaw, going into the waist to receive what he thought was one of the brig’s boats, came against Carter making his way aft hurriedly.

“Hullo! Is it you again?” he said, swiftly, barring the way.

“I come from the yacht,” began Carter with some impatience.

“Where else could you come from?” said Shaw. “And what might you want now?”

“I want to see your skipper.”

“Well, you can’t,” declared Shaw, viciously. “He’s turned in for the night.”

“He expects me,” said Carter, stamping his foot. “I’ve got to tell him what happened.”

“Don’t you fret yourself, young man,” said Shaw in a superior manner; “he knows all about it.”

They stood suddenly silent in the dark. Carter seemed at a loss what to do. Shaw, though surprised by it, enjoyed the effect he had produced.

“Damn me, if I did not think so,” murmured Carter to himself; then drawling coolly asked — ”And perhaps you know, too?”

“What do you think? Think I am a dummy here? I ain’t mate of this brig for nothing.”

“No, you are not,” said Carter with a certain bitterness of tone. “People do all kinds of queer things for a living, and I am not particular myself, but I would think twice before taking your billet.”

“What? What do you in-si-nu-ate. My billet? You ain’t fit for it, you yacht-swabbing brass-buttoned imposter.”

“What’s this? Any of our boats back?” asked Lingard from the poop. “Let the seacannie in charge come to me at once.”

“There’s only a message from the yacht,” began Shaw, deliberately.

“Yacht! Get the deck lamps along here in the waist! See the ladder lowered. Bear a hand, serang! Mr. Shaw! Burn the flare up aft. Two of them! Give light to the yacht’s boats that will be coming alongside. Steward! Where’s that steward? Turn him out then.”

Bare feet began to patter all round Carter. Shadows glided swiftly.

“Are these flares coming? Where’s the quartermaster on duty?” shouted Lingard in English and Malay. “This way, come here! Put it on a rocket stick — can’t you? Hold over the side — thus! Stand by with the lines for the boats forward there. Mr. Shaw — we want more light!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” called out Shaw, but he did not move, as if dazed by the vehemence of his commander.

“That’s what we want,” muttered Carter under his breath. “Imposter! What do you call yourself?” he said half aloud to Shaw.

The ruddy glare of the flares disclosed Lingard from head to foot, standing at the break of the poop. His head was bare, his face, crudely lighted, had a fierce and changing expression in the sway of flames.

“What can be his game?” thought Carter, impressed by the powerful and wild aspect of that figure. “He’s changed somehow since I saw him first,” he reflected. It struck him the change was serious, not exactly for the worse, perhaps — and yet. . . . Lingard smiled at him from the poop.

Carter went up the steps and without pausing informed him of what had happened.

“Mrs. Travers told me to go to you at once. She’s very upset as you may guess,” he drawled, looking Lingard hard in the face. Lingard knitted his eyebrows. “The hands, too, are scared,” Carter went on. “They fancy the savages, or whatever they may be who stole the owner, are going to board the yacht every minute. I don’t think so myself but — ”

“Quite right — most unlikely,” muttered Lingard.

“Aye, I daresay you know all about it,” continued Carter, coolly, “the men are startled and no mistake, but I can’t blame them very much. There isn’t enough even of carving knives aboard to go round. One old signal gun! A poor show for better men than they.”

“There’s no mistake I suppose about this affair?” asked Lingard.

“Well, unless the gentlemen are having a lark with us at hide and seek. The man says he waited ten minutes at the point, then pulled slowly along the bank looking out, expecting to see them walking back. He made the trunk of a tree apparently stranded on the sand and as he was sculling past he says a man jumped up from behind that log, flung a stick at him and went off running. He backed water at once and began to shout, ‘Are you there, sir?’ No one answered. He could hear the bushes rustle and some strange noises like whisperings. It was very dark. After calling out several times, and waiting on his oars, he got frightened and pulled back to the yacht. That is clear enough. The only doubt in my mind is if they are alive or not. I didn’t let on to Mrs. Travers. That’s a kind of thing you keep to yourself, of course.”

“I don’t think they are dead,” said Lingard, slowly, and as if thinking of something else.

“Oh! If you say so it’s all right,” said Carter with deliberation.

“What?” asked Lingard, absently; “fling a stick, did they? Fling a spear!”

“That’s it!” assented Carter, “but I didn’t say anything. I only wondered if the same kind of stick hadn’t been flung at the owner, that’s all. But I suppose you know your business best, Captain.”

Lingard, grasping his whole beard, reflected profoundly, erect and with bowed head in the glare of the flares.

“I suppose you think it’s my doing?” he asked, sharply, without looking up.

Carter surveyed him with a candidly curious gaze. “Well, Captain, Mrs. Travers did let on a bit to me about our chief-officer’s boat. You’ve stopped it, haven’t you? How she got to know God only knows. She was sorry she spoke, too, but it wasn’t so much of news to me as she thought. I can put two and two together, sometimes. Those rockets, last night, eh? I wished I had bitten my tongue out before I told you about our first gig. But I was taken unawares. Wasn’t I? I put it to you: wasn’t I? And so I told her when she asked me what passed between you and me on board this brig, not twenty-four hours ago. Things look different now, all of a sudden. Enough to scare a woman, but she is the best man of them all on board. The others are fairly off the chump because it’s a bit dark and something has happened they ain’t used to. But she has something on her mind. I can’t make her out!” He paused, wriggled his shoulders slightly — ”No more than I can make you out,” he added.

“That’s your trouble, is it?” said Lingard, slowly.

“Aye, Captain. Is it all clear to you? Stopping boats, kidnapping gentlemen. That’s fun in a way, only — I am a youngster to you — but is it all clear to you? Old Robinson wasn’t particular, you know, and he — ”

“Clearer than daylight,” cried Lingard, hotly. “I can’t give up — ”

He checked himself. Carter waited. The flare bearers stood rigid, turning their faces away from the flame, and in the play of gleams at its foot the mast near by, like a lofty column, ascended in the great darkness. A lot of ropes ran up slanting into a dark void and were lost to sight, but high aloft a brace block gleamed white, the end of a yard-arm could be seen suspended in the air and as if glowing with its own light. The sky had clouded over the brig without a breath of wind.