the same instant Mr. Travers' head
pivoted away from the group to its frontal position.

D'Alcacer, very serious, spoke in a familiar undertone.

"Mrs. Travers tells me that we must be delivered up to those Moors on
shore."

"Yes, there is nothing else for it," said Lingard.

"I confess I am a bit startled," said d'Alcacer; but except for a
slightly hurried utterance nobody could have guessed at anything
resembling emotion.

"I have a right to my good name," said Lingard, also very calm, while
Mrs. Travers near him, with half-veiled eyes, listened impassive like a
presiding genius.

"I wouldn't question that for a moment," conceded d'Alcacer. "A point
of honour is not to be discussed. But there is such a thing as humanity,
too. To be delivered up helplessly. . . ."

"Perhaps!" interrupted Lingard. "But you needn't feel hopeless. I am
not at liberty to give up my life for your own. Mrs. Travers knows why.
That, too, is engaged."

"Always on your honour?"

"I don't know. A promise is a promise."

"Nobody can be held to the impossible," remarked d'Alcacer.

"Impossible! What is impossible? I don't know it. I am not a man to talk
of the impossible or dodge behind it. I did not bring you here."

D'Alcacer lowered his head for a moment. "I have finished," he said,
gravely. "That much I had to say. I hope you don't think I have appeared
unduly anxious."

"It's the best policy, too." Mrs. Travers made herself heard suddenly.
Nothing of her moved but her lips, she did not even raise her eyes.
"It's the only possible policy. You believe me, Mr. d'Alcacer? . . ." He
made an almost imperceptible movement of the head. . . . "Well, then,
I put all my hope in you, Mr. d'Alcacer, to get this over as easily as
possible and save us all from some odious scene. You think perhaps that
it is I who ought to. . . ."

"No, no! I don't think so," interrupted d'Alcacer. "It would be
impossible."

"I am afraid it would," she admitted, nervously.

D'Alcacer made a gesture as if to beg her to say no more and at once
crossed over to Mr. Travers' side of the Cage. He did not want to give
himself time to think about his task. Mr. Travers was sitting up on
the camp bedstead with a light cotton sheet over his legs. He stared at
nothing, and on approaching him d'Alcacer disregarded the slight sinking
of his own heart at this aspect which seemed to be that of extreme
terror. "This is awful," he thought. The man kept as still as a hare