Travers
passed through the gate on d'Alcacer's arm. Her face was half veiled.
She moved through the throng of spectators displayed in the torchlight
looking straight before her. Belarab, standing in front of a group of
headmen, pretended not to see the white people as they went by. With
Lingard he shook hands, murmuring the usual formulas of friendship; and
when he heard the great white man say, "You shall never see me again,"
he felt immensely relieved. Belarab did not want to see that white man
again, but as he responded to the pressure of Lingard's hand he had a
grave smile.

"God alone knows the future," he said.

Lingard walked to the beach by himself, feeling a stranger to all men
and abandoned by the All-Knowing God. By that time the first boat with
Mr. and Mrs. Travers had already got away out of the blood-red light
thrown by the torches upon the water. D'Alcacer and Lingard followed
in the second. Presently the dark shade of the creek, walled in by the
impenetrable forest, closed round them and the splash of the paddles
echoed in the still, damp air.

"How do you think this awful accident happened?" asked d'Alcacer, who
had been sitting silent by Lingard's side.

"What is an accident?" said Lingard with a great effort. "Where did you
hear of such a thing? Accident! Don't disturb me, Mr. d'Alcacer. I have
just come back to life and it has closed on me colder and darker than
the grave itself. Let me get used . . . I can't bear the sound of a
human voice yet."

VIII

And now, stoical in the cold and darkness of his regained life, Lingard
had to listen to the voice of Wasub telling him Jaffir's story. The
old serang's face expressed a profound dejection and there was infinite
sadness in the flowing murmur of his words.

"Yes, by Allah! They were all there: that tyrannical Tengga, noisy
like a fool; the Rajah Hassim, a ruler without a country; Daman, the
wandering chief, and the three Pangerans of the sea-robbers. They came
on board boldly, for Tuan Jorgenson had given them permission, and their
talk was that you, Tuan, were a willing captive in Belarab's stockade.
They said they had waited all night for a message of peace from you or
from Belarab. But there was nothing, and with the first sign of day they
put out on the lagoon to make friends with Tuan Jorgenson; for, they
said, you, Tuan, were as if you had not been, possessing no more power
than a dead man, the mere slave of these strange white peopl