rattle of loose planks that
led from the ground to the door of the house. He moved his head beyond
the shelter of the tree and saw Aissa coming down the inclined way into
the courtyard. After making a few hurried paces towards the tree, she
stopped with one foot advanced in an appearance of sudden terror, and
her eyes glanced wildly right and left. Her head was uncovered. A blue
cloth wrapped her from her head to foot in close slanting folds, with
one end thrown over her shoulder. A tress of her black hair strayed
across her bosom. Her bare arms pressed down close to her body, with
hands open and outstretched fingers; her slightly elevated shoulders and
the backward inclination of her torso gave her the aspect of one defiant
yet shrinking from a coming blow. She had closed the door of the house
behind her; and as she stood solitary in the unnatural and threatening
twilight of the murky day, with everything unchanged around her, she
appeared to Lingard as if she had been made there, on the spot, out
of the black vapours of the sky and of the sinister gleams of feeble
sunshine that struggled, through the thickening clouds, into the
colourless desolation of the world.

After a short but attentive glance towards the shut-up house, Lingard
stepped out from behind the tree and advanced slowly towards her. The
sudden fixity of her--till then--restless eyes and a slight twitch of
her hands were the only signs she gave at first of having seen him.
She made a long stride forward, and putting herself right in his path,
stretched her arms across; her black eyes opened wide, her lips parted
as if in an uncertain attempt to speak--but no sound came out to break
the significant silence of their meeting. Lingard stopped and looked at
her with stern curiosity. After a while he said composedly--

"Let me pass. I came here to talk to a man. Does he hide? Has he sent
you?"

She made a step nearer, her arms fell by her side, then she put them
straight out nearly touching Lingard's breast.

"He knows not fear," she said, speaking low, with a forward throw of
her head, in a voice trembling but distinct. "It is my own fear that has
sent me here. He sleeps."

"He has slept long enough," said Lingard, in measured tones. "I am
come--and now is the time of his waking. Go and tell him this--or else
my own voice will call him up. A voice he knows well."

He put her hands down firmly and again made as if to pass by her.

"Do not!" she exclai