The Rescue (11 page)

He argued to himself that had not these defeated men expected everything
from him they could not have been so indifferent to his action. Their
dumb quietude stirred him more than the most ardent pleading. Not a
word, not a whisper, not a questioning look even! They did not ask! It
flattered him. He was also rather glad of it, because if the unconscious
part of him was perfectly certain of its action, he, himself, did not
know what to do with those bruised and battered beings a playful fate
had delivered suddenly into his hands.

He had received the fugitives personally, had helped some over the rail;
in the darkness, slashed about by lightning, he had guessed that not one
of them was unwounded, and in the midst of tottering shapes he wondered
how on earth they had managed to reach the long-boat that had brought
them off. He caught unceremoniously in his arms the smallest of these
shapes and carried it into the cabin, then without looking at his light
burden ran up again on deck to get the brig under way. While shouting
out orders he was dimly aware of someone hovering near his elbow. It was
Hassim.

"I am not ready for war," he explained, rapidly, over his shoulder,
"and to-morrow there may be no wind." Afterward for a time he forgot
everybody and everything while he conned the brig through the few
outlying dangers. But in half an hour, and running off with the wind on
the quarter, he was quite clear of the coast and breathed freely. It
was only then that he approached two others on that poop where he was
accustomed in moments of difficulty to commune alone with his craft.
Hassim had called his sister out of the cabin; now and then Lingard
could see them with fierce distinctness, side by side, and with twined
arms, looking toward the mysterious country that seemed at every flash
to leap away farther from the brig—unscathed and fading.

The thought uppermost in Lingard's mind was: "What on earth am I going
to do with them?" And no one seemed to care what he would do. Jaffir
with eight others quartered on the main hatch, looked to each other's
wounds and conversed interminably in low tones, cheerful and quiet, like
well-behaved children. Each of them had saved his kris, but Lingard had
to make a distribution of cotton cloth out of his trade-goods. Whenever
he passed by them, they all looked after him gravely. Hassim and Immada
lived in the cuddy. The chief's sister took the air only in the evening
and those two could be heard every night, invisible and murmuring in the
shadows of the quarter-deck. Every Malay on board kept respectfully away
from them.

Lingard, on the poop, listened to the soft voices, rising and falling,
in a melancholy cadence; sometimes the woman cried out as if in anger or
in pain. He would stop short. The sound of a deep sigh would float up
to him on the stillness of the night. Attentive stars surrounded the
wandering brig and on all sides their light fell through a vast silence
upon a noiseless sea. Lingard would begin again to pace the deck,
muttering to himself.

"Belarab's the man for this job. His is the only place where I can look
for help, but I don't think I know enough to find it. I wish I had old
Jorgenson here—just for ten minutes."

This Jorgenson knew things that had happened a long time ago, and lived
amongst men efficient in meeting the accidents of the day, but who did
not care what would happen to-morrow and who had no time to remember
yesterday. Strictly speaking, he did not live amongst them. He only
appeared there from time to time. He lived in the native quarter, with
a native woman, in a native house standing in the middle of a plot
of fenced ground where grew plantains, and furnished only with mats,
cooking pots, a queer fishing net on two sticks, and a small mahogany
case with a lock and a silver plate engraved with the words "Captain H.
C. Jorgenson. Barque Wild Rose."

It was like an inscription on a tomb. The Wild Rose was dead, and so was
Captain H. C. Jorgenson, and the sextant case was all that was left
of them. Old Jorgenson, gaunt and mute, would turn up at meal times on
board any trading vessel in the Roads, and the stewards—Chinamen
or mulattos—would sulkily put on an extra plate without waiting for
orders. When the seamen traders foregathered noisily round a glittering
cluster of bottles and glasses on a lighted verandah, old Jorgenson
would emerge up the stairs as if from a dark sea, and, stepping up with
a kind of tottering jauntiness, would help himself in the first tumbler
to hand.

"I drink to you all. No—no chair."

He would stand silent over the talking group. His taciturnity was as
eloquent as the repeated warning of the slave of the feast. His flesh
had gone the way of all flesh, his spirit had sunk in the turmoil of his
past, but his immense and bony frame survived as if made of iron. His
hands trembled but his eyes were steady. He was supposed to know details
about the end of mysterious men and of mysterious enterprises. He was an
evident failure himself, but he was believed to know secrets that would
make the fortune of any man; yet there was also a general impression
that his knowledge was not of that nature which would make it profitable
for a moderately prudent person.

This powerful skeleton, dressed in faded blue serge and without any kind
of linen, existed anyhow. Sometimes, if offered the job, he piloted
a home ship through the Straits of Rhio, after, however, assuring the
captain:

"You don't want a pilot; a man could go through with his eyes shut. But
if you want me, I'll come. Ten dollars."

Then, after seeing his charge clear of the last island of the group he
would go back thirty miles in a canoe, with two old Malays who seemed
to be in some way his followers. To travel thirty miles at sea under
the equatorial sun and in a cranky dug-out where once down you must not
move, is an achievement that requires the endurance of a fakir and the
virtue of a salamander. Ten dollars was cheap and generally he was in
demand. When times were hard he would borrow five dollars from any of
the adventurers with the remark:

"I can't pay you back, very soon, but the girl must eat, and if you want
to know anything, I can tell you."

It was remarkable that nobody ever smiled at that "anything." The usual
thing was to say:

"Thank you, old man; when I am pushed for a bit of information I'll come
to you."

Jorgenson nodded then and would say: "Remember that unless you young
chaps are like we men who ranged about here years ago, what I could tell
you would be worse than poison."

It was from Jorgenson, who had his favourites with whom he was less
silent, that Lingard had heard of Darat-es-Salam, the "Shore of Refuge."
Jorgenson had, as he expressed it, "known the inside of that country
just after the high old times when the white-clad Padris preached and
fought all over Sumatra till the Dutch shook in their shoes." Only he
did not say "shook" and "shoes" but the above paraphrase conveys well
enough his contemptuous meaning. Lingard tried now to remember and piece
together the practical bits of old Jorgenson's amazing tales; but all
that had remained with him was an approximate idea of the locality and
a very strong but confused notion of the dangerous nature of its
approaches. He hesitated, and the brig, answering in her movements to
the state of the man's mind, lingered on the road, seemed to hesitate
also, swinging this way and that on the days of calm.

It was just because of that hesitation that a big New York ship, loaded
with oil in cases for Japan, and passing through the Billiton passage,
sighted one morning a very smart brig being hove-to right in the
fair-way and a little to the east of Carimata. The lank skipper, in a
frock-coat, and the big mate with heavy moustaches, judged her almost
too pretty for a Britisher, and wondered at the man on board laying his
topsail to the mast for no reason that they could see. The big ship's
sails fanned her along, flapping in the light air, and when the brig was
last seen far astern she had still her mainyard aback as if waiting for
someone. But when, next day, a London tea-clipper passed on the same
track, she saw no pretty brig hesitating, all white and still at the
parting of the ways. All that night Lingard had talked with Hassim while
the stars streamed from east to west like an immense river of sparks
above their heads. Immada listened, sometimes exclaiming low, sometimes
holding her breath. She clapped her hands once. A faint dawn appeared.

"You shall be treated like my father in the country," Hassim was saying.
A heavy dew dripped off the rigging and the darkened sails were black
on the pale azure of the sky. "You shall be the father who advises for
good—"

"I shall be a steady friend, and as a friend I want to be treated—no
more," said Lingard. "Take back your ring."

"Why do you scorn my gift?" asked Hassim, with a sad and ironic smile.

"Take it," said Lingard. "It is still mine. How can I forget that, when
facing death, you thought of my safety? There are many dangers before
us. We shall be often separated—to work better for the same end. If
ever you and Immada need help at once and I am within reach, send me a
message with this ring and if I am alive I will not fail you." He looked
around at the pale daybreak. "I shall talk to Belarab straight—like we
whites do. I have never seen him, but I am a strong man. Belarab must
help us to reconquer your country and when our end is attained I won't
let him eat you up."

Hassim took the ring and inclined his head.

"It's time for us to be moving," said Lingard. He felt a slight tug at
his sleeve. He looked back and caught Immada in the act of pressing her
forehead to the grey flannel. "Don't, child!" he said, softly.

The sun rose above the faint blue line of the Shore of Refuge.

The hesitation was over. The man and the vessel, working in accord, had
found their way to the faint blue shore. Before the sun had descended
half-way to its rest the brig was anchored within a gunshot of the slimy
mangroves, in a place where for a hundred years or more no white man's
vessel had been entrusted to the hold of the bottom. The adventurers
of two centuries ago had no doubt known of that anchorage for they were
very ignorant and incomparably audacious. If it is true, as some say,
that the spirits of the dead haunt the places where the living have
sinned and toiled, then they might have seen a white long-boat, pulled
by eight oars and steered by a man sunburnt and bearded, a cabbage-leaf
hat on head, and pistols in his belt, skirting the black mud, full of
twisted roots, in search of a likely opening.

Creek after creek was passed and the boat crept on slowly like a
monstrous water-spider with a big body and eight slender legs. . . . Did
you follow with your ghostly eyes the quest of this obscure adventurer
of yesterday, you shades of forgotten adventurers who, in leather
jerkins and sweating under steel helmets, attacked with long rapiers the
palisades of the strange heathen, or, musket on shoulder and match in
cock, guarded timber blockhouses built upon the banks of rivers that
command good trade? You, who, wearied with the toil of fighting, slept
wrapped in frieze mantles on the sand of quiet beaches, dreaming of
fabulous diamonds and of a far-off home.

"Here's an opening," said Lingard to Hassim, who sat at his side, just
as the sun was setting away to his left. "Here's an opening big enough
for a ship. It's the entrance we are looking for, I believe. We shall
pull all night up this creek if necessary and it's the very devil if we
don't come upon Belarab's lair before daylight."

He shoved the tiller hard over and the boat, swerving sharply, vanished
from the coast.

And perhaps the ghosts of old adventurers nodded wisely their ghostly
heads and exchanged the ghost of a wistful smile.

"What's the matter with King Tom of late?" would ask someone when, all
the cards in a heap on the table, the traders lying back in their chairs
took a spell from a hard gamble.

"Tom has learned to hold his tongue, he must be up to some dam' good
thing," opined another; while a man with hooked features and of German
extraction who was supposed to be agent for a Dutch crockery house—the
famous "Sphinx" mark—broke in resentfully:

"Nefer mind him, shentlemens, he's matt, matt as a Marsh Hase. Dree
monats ago I call on board his prig to talk pizness. And he says like
dis—'Glear oudt.' 'Vat for?' I say. 'Glear oudt before I shuck you
oferboard.' Gott-for-dam! Iss dat the vay to talk pizness? I vant sell
him ein liddle case first chop grockery for trade and—"

"Ha, ha, ha! I don't blame Tom," interrupted the owner of a pearling
schooner, who had come into the Roads for stores. "Why, Mosey, there
isn't a mangy cannibal left in the whole of New Guinea that hasn't got a
cup and saucer of your providing. You've flooded the market, savee?"

Jorgenson stood by, a skeleton at the gaming table.

"Because you are a Dutch spy," he said, suddenly, in an awful tone.

The agent of the Sphinx mark jumped up in a sudden fury.

"Vat? Vat? Shentlemens, you all know me!" Not a muscle moved in
the faces around. "Know me," he stammered with wet lips. "Vat, funf
year—berfegtly acquaint—grockery—Verfluchte sponsher. Ich? Spy. Vat
for spy? Vordamte English pedlars!"

The door slammed. "Is that so?" asked a New England voice. "Why don't
you let daylight into him?"

"Oh, we can't do that here," murmured one of the players. "Your deal,
Trench, let us get on."

"Can't you?" drawled the New England voice. "You law-abiding,
get-a-summons, act-of—parliament lot of sons of Belial—can't you?
Now, look a-here, these Colt pistols I am selling—" He took the pearler
aside and could be heard talking earnestly in the corner. "See—you
load—and—see?" There were rapid clicks. "Simple, isn't it? And if
any trouble—say with your divers"—
click, click, click
—"Through and
through—like a sieve—warranted to cure the worst kind of cussedness
in any nigger. Yes, siree! A case of twenty-four or single specimens—as
you like. No? Shot-guns—rifles? No! Waal, I guess you're of no use to
me, but I could do a deal with that Tom—what d'ye call him? Where d'ye
catch him? Everywhere—eh? Waal—that's nowhere. But I shall find him
some day—yes, siree."