The Rescue (32 page)

On the afternoon of the very day he had arrived with her on board the
Emma—to the infinite disgust of Jorgenson—Lingard held with Mrs.
Travers (after she had had a couple of hours' rest) a long, fiery, and
perplexed conversation. From the nature of the problem it could not be
exhaustive; but toward the end of it they were both feeling thoroughly
exhausted. Mrs. Travers had no longer to be instructed as to facts and
possibilities. She was aware of them only too well and it was not her
part to advise or argue. She was not called upon to decide or to plead.
The situation was far beyond that. But she was worn out with watching
the passionate conflict within the man who was both so desperately
reckless and so rigidly restrained in the very ardour of his heart and
the greatness of his soul. It was a spectacle that made her forget
the actual questions at issue. This was no stage play; and yet she had
caught herself looking at him with bated breath as at a great actor on a
darkened stage in some simple and tremendous drama. He extorted from her
a response to the forces that seemed to tear at his single-minded
brain, at his guileless breast. He shook her with his own struggles, he
possessed her with his emotions and imposed his personality as if its
tragedy were the only thing worth considering in this matter. And
yet what had she to do with all those obscure and barbarous things?
Obviously nothing. Unluckily she had been taken into the confidence of
that man's passionate perplexity, a confidence provoked apparently by
nothing but the power of her personality. She was flattered, and even
more, she was touched by it; she was aware of something that resembled
gratitude and provoked a sort of emotional return as between equals who
had secretly recognized each other's value. Yet at the same time she
regretted not having been left in the dark; as much in the dark as Mr.
Travers himself or d'Alcacer, though as to the latter it was impossible
to say how much precise, unaccountable, intuitive knowledge was buried
under his unruffled manner.

D'Alcacer was the sort of man whom it would be much easier to suspect
of anything in the world than ignorance—or stupidity. Naturally he
couldn't know anything definite or even guess at the bare outline of the
facts but somehow he must have scented the situation in those few days
of contact with Lingard. He was an acute and sympathetic observer in all
his secret aloofness from the life of men which was so very different
from Jorgenson's secret divorce from the passions of this earth. Mrs.
Travers would have liked to share with d'Alcacer the burden (for it
was a burden) of Lingard's story. After all, she had not provoked those
confidences, neither had that unexpected adventurer from the sea laid on
her an obligation of secrecy. No, not even by implication. He had never
said to her that she was the
only
person whom he wished to know that
story.

No. What he had said was that she was the only person to whom he
could
tell the tale himself, as if no one else on earth had the power to draw
it from him. That was the sense and nothing more. Yes, it would have
been a relief to tell d'Alcacer. It would have been a relief to her
feeling of being shut off from the world alone with Lingard as if within
the four walls of a romantic palace and in an exotic atmosphere. Yes,
that relief and also another: that of sharing the responsibility with
somebody fit to understand. Yet she shrank from it, with unaccountable
reserve, as if by talking of Lingard with d'Alcacer she was bound to
give him an insight into herself. It was a vague uneasiness and yet so
persistent that she felt it, too, when she had to approach and talk to
Lingard under d'Alcacer's eyes. Not that Mr. d'Alcacer would ever dream
of staring or even casting glances. But was he averting his eyes on
purpose? That would be even more offensive.

"I am stupid," whispered Mrs. Travers to herself, with a complete and
reassuring conviction. Yet she waited motionless till the footsteps of
the two men stopped outside the deckhouse, then separated and died away,
before she went out on deck. She came out on deck some time after her
husband. As if in intended contrast to the conflicts of men a great
aspect of serenity lay upon all visible things. Mr. Travers had gone
inside the Cage in which he really looked like a captive and thoroughly
out of place. D'Alcacer had gone in there, too, but he preserved—or was
it an illusion?—an air of independence. It was not that he put it
on. Like Mr. Travers he sat in a wicker armchair in very much the same
attitude as the other gentleman and also silent; but there was somewhere
a subtle difference which did away with the notion of captivity.
Moreover, d'Alcacer had that peculiar gift of never looking out of place
in any surroundings. Mrs. Travers, in order to save her European boots
for active service, had been persuaded to use a pair of leather sandals
also extracted from that seaman's chest in the deckhouse. An additional
fastening had been put on them but she could not avoid making a delicate
clatter as she walked on the deck. No part of her costume made her feel
so exotic. It also forced her to alter her usual gait and move with
quick, short steps very much like Immada.

"I am robbing the girl of her clothes," she had thought to herself,
"besides other things." She knew by this time that a girl of such
high rank would never dream of wearing anything that had been worn by
somebody else.

At the slight noise of Mrs. Travers' sandals d'Alcacer looked over the
back of his chair. But he turned his head away at once and Mrs. Travers,
leaning her elbow on the rail and resting her head on the palm of her
hand, looked across the calm surface of the lagoon, idly.

She was turning her back on the Cage, the fore-part of the deck and
the edge of the nearest forest. That great erection of enormous solid
trunks, dark, rugged columns festooned with writhing creepers and
steeped in gloom, was so close to the bank that by looking over the
side of the ship she could see inverted in the glassy belt of water
its massive and black reflection on the reflected sky that gave the
impression of a clear blue abyss seen through a transparent film. And
when she raised her eyes the same abysmal immobility seemed to reign
over the whole sun-bathed enlargement of that lagoon which was one of
the secret places of the earth. She felt strongly her isolation. She was
so much the only being of her kind moving within this mystery that even
to herself she looked like an apparition without rights and without
defence and that must end by surrendering to those forces which seemed
to her but the expression of the unconscious genius of the place. Hers
was the most complete loneliness, charged with a catastrophic tension.
It lay about her as though she had been set apart within a magic circle.
It cut off—but it did not protect. The footsteps that she knew how to
distinguish above all others on that deck were heard suddenly behind
her. She did not turn her head.

Since that afternoon when the gentlemen, as Lingard called them, had
been brought on board, Mrs. Travers and Lingard had not exchanged one
significant word.

When Lingard had decided to proceed by way of negotiation she had asked
him on what he based his hope of success; and he had answered her: "On
my luck." What he really depended on was his prestige; but even if he
had been aware of such a word he would not have used it, since it would
have sounded like a boast. And, besides, he did really believe in his
luck. Nobody, either white or brown, had ever doubted his word and that,
of course, gave him great assurance in entering upon the negotiation.
But the ultimate issue of it would be always a matter of luck. He said
so distinctly to Mrs. Travers at the moment of taking leave of her,
with Jorgenson already waiting for him in the boat that was to take them
across the lagoon to Belarab's stockade.

Startled by his decision (for it had come suddenly clinched by the words
"I believe I can do it"), Mrs. Travers had dropped her hand into
his strong open palm on which an expert in palmistry could have
distinguished other lines than the line of luck. Lingard's hand closed
on hers with a gentle pressure. She looked at him, speechless. He waited
for a moment, then in an unconsciously tender voice he said: "Well, wish
me luck then."

She remained silent. And he still holding her hand looked surprised at
her hesitation. It seemed to her that she could not let him go, and she
didn't know what to say till it occurred to her to make use of the power
she knew she had over him. She would try it again. "I am coming with
you," she declared with decision. "You don't suppose I could remain here
in suspense for hours, perhaps."

He dropped her hand suddenly as if it had burnt him—"Oh, yes, of
course," he mumbled with an air of confusion. One of the men over there
was her husband! And nothing less could be expected from such a woman.
He had really nothing to say but she thought he hesitated.—"Do you
think my presence would spoil everything? I assure you I am a lucky
person, too, in a way. . . . As lucky as you, at least," she had added
in a murmur and with a smile which provoked his responsive mutter—"Oh,
yes, we are a lucky pair of people."—"I count myself lucky in having
found a man like you to fight my—our battles," she said, warmly.
"Suppose you had not existed? . . . . You must let me come with you!"
For the second time before her expressed wish to stand by his side he
bowed his head. After all, if things came to the worst, she would be as
safe between him and Jorgenson as left alone on board the Emma with
a few Malay spearmen for all defence. For a moment Lingard thought
of picking up the pistols he had taken out of his belt preparatory to
joining Jorgenson in the boat, thinking it would be better to go to a
big talk completely unarmed. They were lying on the rail but he didn't
pick them up. Four shots didn't matter. They could not matter if the
world of his creation were to go to pieces. He said nothing of that to
Mrs. Travers but busied himself in giving her the means to alter her
personal appearance. It was then that the sea-chest in the deckhouse
was opened for the first time before the interested Mrs. Travers who had
followed him inside. Lingard handed to her a Malay woman's light cotton
coat with jewelled clasps to put over her European dress. It covered
half of her yachting skirt. Mrs. Travers obeyed him without comment. He
pulled out a long and wide scarf of white silk embroidered heavily on
the edges and ends, and begged her to put it over her head and arrange
the ends so as to muffle her face, leaving little more than her eyes
exposed to view.—"We are going amongst a lot of Mohammedans," he
explained.—"I see. You want me to look respectable," she jested.—"I
assure you, Mrs. Travers," he protested, earnestly, "that most of the
people there and certainly all the great men have never seen a white
woman in their lives. But perhaps you would like better one of those
other scarves? There are three in there."—"No, I like this one well
enough. They are all very gorgeous. I see that the Princess is to be
sent back to her land with all possible splendour. What a thoughtful man
you are, Captain Lingard. That child will be touched by your generosity.
. . . Will I do like this?"

"Yes," said Lingard, averting his eyes. Mrs. Travers followed him into
the boat where the Malays stared in silence while Jorgenson, stiff and
angular, gave no sign of life, not even so much as a movement of the
eyes. Lingard settled her in the stern sheets and sat down by her side.
The ardent sunshine devoured all colours. The boat swam forward on the
glare heading for the strip of coral beach dazzling like a crescent of
metal raised to a white heat. They landed. Gravely, Jorgenson opened
above Mrs. Travers' head a big white cotton parasol and she advanced
between the two men, dazed, as if in a dream and having no other contact
with the earth but through the soles of her feet. Everything was still,
empty, incandescent, and fantastic. Then when the gate of the stockade
was thrown open she perceived an expectant and still multitude of bronze
figures draped in coloured stuffs. They crowded the patches of shade
under the three lofty forest trees left within the enclosure between the
sun-smitten empty spaces of hard-baked ground. The broad blades of the
spears decorated with crimson tufts of horsehair had a cool gleam under
the outspread boughs. To the left a group of buildings on piles with
long verandahs and immense roofs towered high in the air above the
heads of the crowd, and seemed to float in the glare, looking much less
substantial than their heavy shadows. Lingard, pointing to one of the
smallest, said in an undertone, "I lived there for a fortnight when I
first came to see Belarab"; and Mrs. Travers felt more than ever as if
walking in a dream when she perceived beyond the rails of its verandah
and visible from head to foot two figures in an armour of chain mail
with pointed steel helmets crested with white and black feathers and
guarding the closed door. A high bench draped in turkey cloth stood
in an open space of the great audience shed. Lingard led her up to it,
Jorgenson on her other side closed the parasol calmly, and when she sat
down between them the whole throng before her eyes sank to the ground
with one accord disclosing in the distance of the courtyard a lonely
figure leaning against the smooth trunk of a tree. A white cloth was
fastened round his head by a yellow cord. Its pointed ends fell on
his shoulders, framing a thin dark face with large eyes, a silk cloak
striped black and white fell to his feet, and in the distance he looked
aloof and mysterious in his erect and careless attitude suggesting
assurance and power.

Lingard, bending slightly, whispered into Mrs. Travers' ear that that
man, apart and dominating the scene, was Daman, the supreme leader of
the Illanuns, the one who had ordered the capture of those gentlemen in
order perhaps to force his hand. The two barbarous, half-naked figures
covered with ornaments and charms, squatting at his feet with their
heads enfolded in crimson and gold handkerchiefs and with straight
swords lying across their knees, were the Pangerans who carried out the
order, and had brought the captives into the lagoon. But the two men in
chain armour on watch outside the door of the small house were Belarab's
two particular body-guards, who got themselves up in that way only on
very great occasions. They were the outward and visible sign that the
prisoners were in Belarab's keeping, and this was good, so far. The pity
was that the Great Chief himself was not there. Then Lingard assumed a
formal pose and Mrs. Travers stared into the great courtyard and with
rows and rows of faces ranged on the ground at her feet felt a little
giddy for a moment.