held to
ransom on some incomprehensible terms by an extraordinary and outrageous
bandit. This conviction, strung to the highest pitch, never left him for
a moment, being the object of indignant meditation to his mind, and even
clinging, as it were, to his very body. It lurked in his eyes, in his
gestures, in his ungracious mutters, and in his sinister silences. The
shock to his moral being had ended by affecting Mr. Travers' physical
machine. He was aware of hepatic pains, suffered from accesses of
somnolence and suppressed gusts of fury which frightened him secretly.
His complexion had acquired a yellow tinge, while his heavy eyes had
become bloodshot because of the smoke of the open wood fires during
his three days' detention inside Belarab's stockade. His eyes had been
always very sensitive to outward conditions. D'Alcacer's fine black eyes
were more enduring and his appearance did not differ very much from his
ordinary appearance on board the yacht. He had accepted with smiling
thanks the offer of a thin blue flannel tunic from Jorgenson. Those two
men were much of the same build, though of course d'Alcacer, quietly
alive and spiritually watchful, did not resemble Jorgenson, who, without
being exactly macabre, behaved more like an indifferent but restless
corpse. Those two could not be said to have ever conversed together.
Conversation with Jorgenson was an impossible thing. Even Lingard never
attempted the feat. He propounded questions to Jorgenson much as a
magician would interrogate an evoked shade, or gave him curt directions
as one would make use of some marvellous automaton. And that was
apparently the way in which Jorgenson preferred to be treated. Lingard's
real company on board the Emma was d'Alcacer. D'Alcacer had met Lingard
on the easy terms of a man accustomed all his life to good society in
which the very affectations must be carried on without effort. Whether
affectation, or nature, or inspired discretion, d'Alcacer never let the
slightest curiosity pierce the smoothness of his level, grave courtesy
lightened frequently by slight smiles which often had not much
connection with the words he uttered, except that somehow they made them
sound kindly and as it were tactful. In their character, however, those
words were strictly neutral.

The only time when Lingard had detected something of a deeper
comprehension in d'Alcacer was the day after the long negotiations
inside Belarab's stockade for the tempora