hen all this . . . He called out to Willems--

"Tell her to let me go or . . ."

He heard Willems shouting something, waited for awhile, then glanced
vaguely down and saw the woman still stretched out perfectly mute and
unstirring, with her head at his feet. He felt a nervous impatience
that, somehow, resembled fear.

"Tell her to let go, to go away, Willems, I tell you. I've had enough of
this," he cried.

"All right, Captain Lingard," answered the calm voice of Willems, "she
has let go. Take your foot off her hair; she can't get up."

Lingard leaped aside, clean away, and spun round quickly. He saw her sit
up and cover her face with both hands, then he turned slowly on his
heel and looked at the man. Willems held himself very straight, but was
unsteady on his feet, and moved about nearly on the same spot, like a
tipsy man attempting to preserve his balance. After gazing at him for a
while, Lingard called, rancorous and irritable--

"What have you got to say for yourself?"

Willems began to walk towards him. He walked slowly, reeling a little
before he took each step, and Lingard saw him put his hand to his face,
then look at it holding it up to his eyes, as if he had there, concealed
in the hollow of the palm, some small object which he wanted to examine
secretly. Suddenly he drew it, with a brusque movement, down the front
of his jacket and left a long smudge.

"That's a fine thing to do," said Willems.

He stood in front of Lingard, one of his eyes sunk deep in the
increasing swelling of his cheek, still repeating mechanically the
movement of feeling his damaged face; and every time he did this he
pressed the palm to some clean spot on his jacket, covering the white
cotton with bloody imprints as of some deformed and monstrous hand.
Lingard said nothing, looking on. At last Willems left off staunching
the blood and stood, his arms hanging by his side, with his face stiff
and distorted under the patches of coagulated blood; and he seemed
as though he had been set up there for a warning: an incomprehensible
figure marked all over with some awful and symbolic signs of deadly
import. Speaking with difficulty, he repeated in a reproachful tone--

"That was a fine thing to do."

"After all," answered Lingard, bitterly, "I had too good an opinion of
you."

"And I of you. Don't you see that I could have had that fool over there
killed and the whole thing burnt to the ground, swept off the face of
the earth. Y