less
eyes with an almost unearthly detachment. Mrs. Travers had never been
looked at before with that strange and pregnant abstraction. Yet she
didn't dislike Jorgenson. In the early morning light, white from head to
foot in a perfectly clean suit of clothes which seemed hardly to contain
any limbs, freshly shaven (Jorgenson's sunken cheeks with their withered
colouring always had a sort of gloss as though he had the habit of
shaving every two hours or so), he looked as immaculate as though he
had been indeed a pure spirit superior to the soiling contacts of the
material earth. He was disturbing but he was not repulsive. He gave no
sign of greeting.

Lingard addressed him at once.

"You have had a regular staircase built up the side of the hulk,
Jorgenson," he said. "It was very convenient for us to come aboard now,
but in case of an attack don't you think . . ."

"I did think." There was nothing so dispassionate in the world as the
voice of Captain H. C. Jorgenson, ex Barque Wild Rose, since he had
recrossed the Waters of Oblivion to step back into the life of men. "I
did think, but since I don't want to make trouble. . . ."

"Oh, you don't want to make trouble," interrupted Lingard.

"No. Don't believe in it. Do you, King Tom?"

"I may have to make trouble."

"So you came up here in this small dinghy of yours like this to start
making trouble, did you?"

"What's the matter with you? Don't you know me yet, Jorgenson?"

"I thought I knew you. How could I tell that a man like you would come
along for a fight bringing a woman with him?"

"This lady is Mrs. Travers," said Lingard. "The wife of one of the
luckless gentlemen Daman got hold of last evening. . . . This is
Jorgenson, the friend of whom I have been telling you, Mrs. Travers."

Mrs. Travers smiled faintly. Her eyes roamed far and near and the
strangeness of her surroundings, the overpowering curiosity, the
conflict of interest and doubt gave her the aspect of one still new to
life, presenting an innocent and naive attitude before the surprises
of experience. She looked very guileless and youthful between those two
men. Lingard gazed at her with that unconscious tenderness mingled with
wonder, which some men manifest toward girlhood. There was nothing of
a conqueror of kingdoms in his bearing. Jorgenson preserved his
amazing abstraction which seemed neither to hear nor see anything. But,
evidently, he kept a mysterious grip on events in the world of l