e. He spoke of these men with
fierce contempt and an angry tenderness, in mingled accents of envy and
disdain. He was wearied by their folly, by their recklessness, by their
impatience--and he seemed to resent these as if they had been gifts of
which he himself had been deprived by the fatality of his wisdom. They
would fight. When the time came Lingard had only to speak, and a sign
from him would send them to a vain death--those men who could not wait
for an opportunity on this earth or for the eternal revenge of Heaven.

He ceased, and towered upright in the gloom.

"Awake!" he exclaimed, low, bending over the sleeping man.

Their black shapes, passing in turn, eclipsed for two successive moments
the glitter of the stars, and Lingard, who had not stirred, remained
alone. He lay back full length with an arm thrown across his eyes.

When three days afterward he left Belarab's settlement, it was on a calm
morning of unclouded peace. All the boats of the brig came up into the
lagoon armed and manned to make more impressive the solemn fact of a
concluded alliance. A staring crowd watched his imposing departure in
profound silence and with an increased sense of wonder at the mystery of
his apparition. The progress of the boats was smooth and slow while they
crossed the wide lagoon. Lingard looked back once. A great stillness had
laid its hand over the earth, the sky, and the men; upon the immobility
of landscape and people. Hassim and Immada, standing out clearly by
the side of the chief, raised their arms in a last salutation; and the
distant gesture appeared sad, futile, lost in space, like a sign of
distress made by castaways in the vain hope of an impossible help.

He departed, he returned, he went away again, and each time those two
figures, lonely on some sandbank of the Shallows, made at him the same
futile sign of greeting or good-bye. Their arms at each movement seemed
to draw closer around his heart the bonds of a protecting affection.
He worked prosaically, earning money to pay the cost of the romantic
necessity that had invaded his life. And the money ran like water out of
his hands. The owner of the New England voice remitted not a little of
it to his people in Baltimore. But import houses in the ports of the
Far East had their share. It paid for a fast prau which, commanded by
Jaffir, sailed into unfrequented bays and up unexplored rivers, carrying
secret messages, important news, generous bribes. A good pa