The Rescue (48 page)

"No, that cannot be," said that voice. "But, Tuan, verily Tengga himself
is ready to come on board here to talk with you. He is very ready to
come and indeed, Tuan, he means to come on board here before very long."

"Yes, with fifty war-canoes filled with the ferocious rabble of the
Shore of Refuge," Jaffir was heard commenting, sarcastically, over the
rail; and a sinister muttered "It may be so," ascended alongside from
the black water.

Jorgenson kept silent as if waiting for a supreme inspiration and
suddenly he spoke in his other-world voice: "Tell Tengga from me that as
long as he brings with him Rajah Hassim and the Rajah's sister, he and
his chief men will be welcome on deck here, no matter how many boats
come along with them. For that I do not care. You may go now."

A profound silence succeeded. It was clear that the envoy was gone,
keeping in the shadow of the shore. Jorgenson turned to Jaffir.

"Death amongst friends is but a festival," he quoted, mumbling in his
moustache.

"It is, by Allah," assented Jaffir with sombre fervour.

Thirty-six hours later Carter, alone with Lingard in the cabin of the
brig, could almost feel during a pause in his talk the oppressive, the
breathless peace of the Shallows awaiting another sunset.

"I never expected to see any of you alive," Carter began in his easy
tone, but with much less carelessness in his bearing as though his days
of responsibility amongst the Shoals of the Shore of Refuge had matured
his view of the external world and of his own place therein.

"Of course not," muttered Lingard.

The listlessness of that man whom he had always seen acting under
the stress of a secret passion seemed perfectly appalling to Carter's
youthful and deliberate energy. Ever since he had found himself
again face to face with Lingard he had tried to conceal the shocking
impression with a delicacy which owed nothing to training but was as
intuitive as a child's.

While justifying to Lingard his manner of dealing with the situation
on the Shore of Refuge, he could not for the life of him help asking
himself what was this new mystery. He was also young enough to long for
a word of commendation.

"Come, Captain," he argued; "how would you have liked to come out and
find nothing but two half-burnt wrecks stuck on the sands—perhaps?"

He waited for a moment, then in sheer compassion turned away his eyes
from that fixed gaze, from that harassed face with sunk cheeks, from
that figure of indomitable strength robbed of its fire. He said to
himself: "He doesn't hear me," and raised his voice without altering its
self-contained tone:

"I was below yesterday morning when we felt the shock, but the noise
came to us only as a deep rumble. I made one jump for the companion but
that precious Shaw was before me yelling, 'Earthquake! Earthquake!' and
I am hanged if he didn't miss his footing and land down on his head at
the bottom of the stairs. I had to stop to pick him up but I got on deck
in time to see a mighty black cloud that seemed almost solid pop up from
behind the forest like a balloon. It stayed there for quite a long time.
Some of our Calashes on deck swore to me that they had seen a red flash
above the tree-tops. But that's hard to believe. I guessed at once that
something had blown up on shore. My first thought was that I would never
see you any more and I made up my mind at once to find out all the truth
you have been keeping away from me. No, sir! Don't you make a mistake! I
wasn't going to give you up, dead or alive."

He looked hard at Lingard while saying these words and saw the first
sign of animation pass over that ravaged face. He saw even its lips move
slightly; but there was no sound, and Carter looked away again.

"Perhaps you would have done better by telling me everything; but you
left me behind on my own to be your man here. I put my hand to the
work I could see before me. I am a sailor. There were two ships to look
after. And here they are both for you, fit to go or to stay, to fight or
to run, as you choose." He watched with bated breath the effort Lingard
had to make to utter the two words of the desired commendation:

"Well done!"

"And I am your man still," Carter added, impulsively, and hastened to
look away from Lingard, who had tried to smile at him and had failed.
Carter didn't know what to do next, remain in the cabin or leave that
unsupported strong man to himself. With a shyness completely foreign to
his character and which he could not understand himself, he suggested
in an engaging murmur and with an embarrassed assumption of his right to
give advice:

"Why not lie down for a bit, sir? I can attend to anything that may turn
up. You seem done up, sir."

He was facing Lingard, who stood on the other side of the table in a
leaning forward attitude propped up on rigid arms and stared fixedly at
him—perhaps? Carter felt on the verge of despair. This couldn't last.
He was relieved to see Lingard shake his head slightly.

"No, Mr. Carter. I think I will go on deck," said the Captain of the
famous brig Lightning, while his eyes roamed all over the cabin. Carter
stood aside at once, but it was some little time before Lingard made a
move.

The sun had sunk already, leaving that evening no trace of its glory on
a sky clear as crystal and on the waters without a ripple. All colour
seemed to have gone out of the world. The oncoming shadow rose as subtle
as a perfume from the black coast lying athwart the eastern semicircle;
and such was the silence within the horizon that one might have fancied
oneself come to the end of time. Black and toylike in the clear depths
and the final stillness of the evening the brig and the schooner lay
anchored in the middle of the main channel with their heads swung the
same way. Lingard, with his chin on his breast and his arms folded,
moved slowly here and there about the poop. Close and mute like his
shadow, Carter, at his elbow, followed his movements. He felt an anxious
solicitude. . . .

It was a sentiment perfectly new to him. He had never before felt this
sort of solicitude about himself or any other man. His personality was
being developed by new experience, and as he was very simple he received
the initiation with shyness and self-mistrust. He had noticed with
innocent alarm that Lingard had not looked either at the sky or over
the sea, neither at his own ship nor the schooner astern; not along the
decks, not aloft, not anywhere. He had looked at nothing! And somehow
Carter felt himself more lonely and without support than when he had
been left alone by that man in charge of two ships entangled amongst the
Shallows and environed by some sinister mystery. Since that man had come
back, instead of welcome relief Carter felt his responsibility rest on
his young shoulders with tenfold weight. His profound conviction was
that Lingard should be roused.

"Captain Lingard," he burst out in desperation; "you can't say I have
worried you very much since this morning when I received you at the
side, but I must be told something. What is it going to be with us?
Fight or run?"

Lingard stopped short and now there was no doubt in Carter's mind that
the Captain was looking at him. There was no room for any doubt before
that stern and enquiring gaze. "Aha!" thought Carter. "This has
startled him"; and feeling that his shyness had departed he pursued his
advantage. "For the fact of the matter is, sir, that, whatever happens,
unless I am to be your man you will have no officer. I had better tell
you at once that I have bundled that respectable, crazy, fat Shaw out of
the ship. He was upsetting all hands. Yesterday I told him to go and get
his dunnage together because I was going to send him aboard the yacht.
He couldn't have made more uproar about it if I had proposed to chuck
him overboard. I warned him that if he didn't go quietly I would have
him tied up like a sheep ready for slaughter. However, he went down the
ladder on his own feet, shaking his fist at me and promising to have me
hanged for a pirate some day. He can do no harm on board the yacht. And
now, sir, it's for you to give orders and not for me—thank God!"

Lingard turned away, abruptly. Carter didn't budge. After a moment he
heard himself called from the other side of the deck and obeyed with
alacrity.

"What's that story of a man you picked up on the coast last evening?"
asked Lingard in his gentlest tone. "Didn't you tell me something about
it when I came on board?"

"I tried to," said Carter, frankly. "But I soon gave it up. You didn't
seem to pay any attention to what I was saying. I thought you wanted to
be left alone for a bit. What can I know of your ways, yet, sir? Are you
aware, Captain Lingard, that since this morning I have been down five
times at the cabin door to look at you? There you sat. . . ."

He paused and Lingard said: "You have been five times down in the
cabin?"

"Yes. And the sixth time I made up my mind to make you take some notice
of me. I can't be left without orders. There are two ships to look
after, a lot of things to be done. . . ."

"There is nothing to be done," Lingard interrupted with a mere murmur
but in a tone which made Carter keep silent for a while.

"Even to know that much would have been something to go by," he ventured
at last. "I couldn't let you sit there with the sun getting pretty low
and a long night before us."

"I feel stunned yet," said Lingard, looking Carter straight in the face,
as if to watch the effect of that confession.

"Were you very near that explosion?" asked the young man with
sympathetic curiosity and seeking for some sign on Lingard's person.
But there was nothing. Not a single hair of the Captain's head seemed to
have been singed.

"Near," muttered Lingard. "It might have been my head." He pressed it
with both hands, then let them fall. "What about that man?" he asked,
brusquely. "Where did he come from? . . . I suppose he is dead now," he
added in an envious tone.

"No, sir. He must have as many lives as a cat," answered Carter. "I will
tell you how it was. As I said before I wasn't going to give you up,
dead or alive, so yesterday when the sun went down a little in the
afternoon I had two of our boats manned and pulled in shore, taking
soundings to find a passage if there was one. I meant to go back and
look for you with the brig or without the brig—but that doesn't
matter now. There were three or four floating logs in sight. One of the
Calashes in my boat made out something red on one of them. I thought it
was worth while to go and see what it was. It was that man's sarong. It
had got entangled among the branches and prevented him rolling off into
the water. I was never so glad, I assure you, as when we found out
that he was still breathing. If we could only nurse him back to life, I
thought, he could perhaps tell me a lot of things. The log on which he
hung had come out of the mouth of the creek and he couldn't have been
more than half a day on it by my calculation. I had him taken down the
main hatchway and put into a hammock in the 'tween-decks. He only just
breathed then, but some time during the night he came to himself and
got out of the hammock to lie down on a mat. I suppose he was more
comfortable that way. He recovered his speech only this morning and I
went down at once and told you of it, but you took no notice. I told you
also who he was but I don't know whether you heard me or not."

"I don't remember," said Lingard under his breath.

"They are wonderful, those Malays. This morning he was only half alive,
if that much, and now I understand he has been talking to Wasub for an
hour. Will you go down to see him, sir, or shall I send a couple of men
to carry him on deck?"

Lingard looked bewildered for a moment.

"Who on earth is he?" he asked.

"Why, it's that fellow whom you sent out, that night I met you, to catch
our first gig. What do they call him? Jaffir, I think. Hasn't he been
with you ashore, sir? Didn't he find you with the letter I gave him for
you? A most determined looking chap. I knew him again the moment we got
him off the log."

Lingard seized hold of the royal backstay within reach of his hand.
Jaffir! Jaffir! Faithful above all others; the messenger of supreme
moments; the reckless and devoted servant! Lingard felt a crushing sense
of despair. "No, I can't face this," he whispered to himself, looking
at the coast black as ink now before his eyes in the world's shadow that
was slowly encompassing the grey clearness of the Shallow Waters. "Send
Wasub to me. I am going down into the cabin."

He crossed over to the companion, then checking himself suddenly: "Was
there a boat from the yacht during the day?" he asked as if struck by
a sudden thought.—"No, sir," answered Carter. "We had no communication
with the yacht to-day."—"Send Wasub to me," repeated Lingard in a stern
voice as he went down the stairs.

The old serang coming in noiselessly saw his Captain as he had seen him
many times before, sitting under the gilt thunderbolts, apparently as
strong in his body, in his wealth, and in his knowledge of secret words
that have a power over men and elements, as ever. The old Malay squatted
down within a couple of feet from Lingard, leaned his back against
the satinwood panel of the bulkhead, then raising his old eyes with a
watchful and benevolent expression to the white man's face, clasped his
hands between his knees.

"Wasub, you have learned now everything. Is there no one left alive but
Jaffir? Are they all dead?"

"May you live!" answered Wasub; and Lingard whispered an appalled "All
dead!" to which Wasub nodded slightly twice. His cracked voice had a
lamenting intonation. "It is all true! It is all true! You are left
alone, Tuan; you are left alone!"

"It was their destiny," said Lingard at last, with forced calmness. "But
has Jaffir told you of the manner of this calamity? How is it that he
alone came out alive from it to be found by you?"