The Rescue (49 page)

"He was told by his lord to depart and he obeyed," began Wasub, fixing
his eyes on the deck and speaking just loud enough to be heard by
Lingard, who, bending forward in his seat, shrank inwardly from every
word and yet would not have missed a single one of them for anything.

For the catastrophe had fallen on his head like a bolt from the blue in
the early morning hours of the day before. At the first break of dawn he
had been sent for to resume, his talk with Belarab. He had felt
suddenly Mrs. Travers remove her hand from his head. Her voice speaking
intimately into his ear: "Get up. There are some people coming," had
recalled him to himself. He had got up from the ground. The light was
dim, the air full of mist; and it was only gradually that he began to
make out forms above his head and about his feet: trees, houses, men
sleeping on the ground. He didn't recognize them. It was but a cruel
change of dream. Who could tell what was real in this world? He looked
about him, dazedly; he was still drunk with the deep draught of oblivion
he had conquered for himself. Yes—but it was she who had let him snatch
the cup. He looked down at the woman on the bench. She moved not. She
had remained like that, still for hours, giving him a waking dream
of rest without end, in an infinity of happiness without sound and
movement, without thought, without joy; but with an infinite ease of
content, like a world-embracing reverie breathing the air of sadness and
scented with love. For hours she had not moved.

"You are the most generous of women," he said. He bent over her. Her
eyes were wide open. Her lips felt cold. It did not shock him. After he
stood up he remained near her. Heat is a consuming thing, but she with
her cold lips seemed to him indestructible—and, perhaps, immortal!

Again he stooped, but this time it was only to kiss the fringe of her
head scarf. Then he turned away to meet the three men, who, coming round
the corner of the hut containing the prisoners, were approaching him
with measured steps. They desired his presence in the Council room.
Belarab was awake.

They also expressed their satisfaction at finding the white man awake,
because Belarab wanted to impart to him information of the greatest
importance. It seemed to Lingard that he had been awake ever since he
could remember. It was as to being alive that he felt not so sure.
He had no doubt of his existence; but was this life—this profound
indifference, this strange contempt for what his eyes could see, this
distaste for words, this unbelief in the importance of things and men?
He tried to regain possession of himself, his old self which had things
to do, words to speak as well as to hear. But it was too difficult. He
was seduced away by the tense feeling of existence far superior to
the mere consciousness of life, and which in its immensity of
contradictions, delight, dread, exultation and despair could not be
faced and yet was not to be evaded. There was no peace in it. But who
wanted peace? Surrender was better, the dreadful ease of slack limbs in
the sweep of an enormous tide and in a divine emptiness of mind. If this
was existence then he knew that he existed. And he knew that the
woman existed, too, in the sweep of the tide, without speech, without
movement, without heat! Indestructible—and, perhaps, immortal!

With the sublime indifference of a man who has had a glimpse through the
open doors of Paradise and is no longer careful of mere life, Lingard
had followed Belarab's anxious messengers. The stockade was waking up
in a subdued resonance of voices. Men were getting up from the ground,
fires were being rekindled. Draped figures flitted in the mist amongst
the buildings; and through the mat wall of a bamboo house Lingard heard
the feeble wailing of a child. A day of mere life was beginning; but in
the Chief's great Council room several wax candles and a couple of cheap
European lamps kept the dawn at bay, while the morning mist which could
not be kept out made a faint reddish halo round every flame.

Belarab was not only awake, but he even looked like a man who had not
slept for a long time. The creator of the Shore of Refuge, the weary
Ruler of the Settlement, with his scorn of the unrest and folly of men,
was angry with his white friend who was always bringing his desires and
his troubles to his very door. Belarab did not want any one to die but
neither did he want any one in particular to live. What he was concerned
about was to preserve the mystery and the power of his melancholy
hesitations. These delicate things were menaced by Lingard's brusque
movements, by that passionate white man who believed in more than
one God and always seemed to doubt the power of Destiny. Belarab was
profoundly annoyed. He was also genuinely concerned, for he liked
Lingard. He liked him not only for his strength, which protected his
clear-minded scepticism from those dangers that beset all rulers, but he
liked him also for himself. That man of infinite hesitations, born from
a sort of mystic contempt for Allah's creation, yet believed absolutely
both in Lingard's power and in his boldness. Absolutely. And yet, in the
marvellous consistency of his temperament, now that the moment had come,
he dreaded to put both power and fortitude to the test.

Lingard could not know that some little time before the first break of
dawn one of Belarab's spies in the Settlement had found his way inside
the stockade at a spot remote from the lagoon, and that a very few
moments after Lingard had left the Chief in consequence of Jorgenson's
rockets, Belarab was listening to an amazing tale of Hassim and Immada's
capture and of Tengga's determination, very much strengthened by
that fact, to obtain possession of the Emma, either by force or by
negotiation, or by some crafty subterfuge in which the Rajah and
his sister could be made to play their part. In his mistrust of the
universe, which seemed almost to extend to the will of God himself,
Belarab was very much alarmed, for the material power of Daman's
piratical crowd was at Tengga's command; and who could tell whether this
Wajo Rajah would remain loyal in the circumstances? It was also very
characteristic of him whom the original settlers of the Shore of Refuge
called the Father of Safety, that he did not say anything of this to
Lingard, for he was afraid of rousing Lingard's fierce energy which
would even carry away himself and all his people and put the peace of so
many years to the sudden hazard of a battle.

Therefore Belarab set himself to persuade Lingard on general
considerations to deliver the white men, who really belonged to Daman,
to that supreme Chief of the Illanuns and by this simple proceeding
detach him completely from Tengga. Why should he, Belarab, go to war
against half the Settlement on their account? It was not necessary, it
was not reasonable. It would be even in a manner a sin to begin a strife
in a community of True Believers. Whereas with an offer like that in his
hand he could send an embassy to Tengga who would see there at once the
downfall of his purposes and the end of his hopes. At once! That moment!
. . . Afterward the question of a ransom could be arranged with Daman in
which he, Belarab, would mediate in the fullness of his recovered power,
without a rival and in the sincerity of his heart. And then, if need be,
he could put forth all his power against the chief of the sea-vagabonds
who would, as a matter of fact, be negotiating under the shadow of the
sword.

Belarab talked, low-voiced and dignified, with now and then a subtle
intonation, a persuasive inflexion or a half-melancholy smile in the
course of the argument. What encouraged him most was the changed aspect
of his white friend. The fierce power of his personality seemed to have
turned into a dream. Lingard listened, growing gradually inscrutable in
his continued silence, but remaining gentle in a sort of rapt patience
as if lapped in the wings of the Angel of Peace himself. Emboldened by
that transformation, Belarab's counsellors seated on the mats murmured
loudly their assent to the views of the Chief. Through the thickening
white mist of tropical lands, the light of the tropical day filtered
into the hall. One of the wise men got up from the floor and with
prudent fingers began extinguishing the waxlights one by one. He
hesitated to touch the lamps, the flames of which looked yellow and
cold. A puff of the morning breeze entered the great room, faint and
chill. Lingard, facing Belarab in a wooden armchair, with slack
limbs and in the divine emptiness of a mind enchanted by a glimpse of
Paradise, shuddered profoundly.

A strong voice shouted in the doorway without any ceremony and with a
sort of jeering accent:

"Tengga's boats are out in the mist."

Lingard half rose from his seat, Belarab himself could not repress a
start. Lingard's attitude was a listening one, but after a moment
of hesitation he ran out of the hall. The inside of the stockade was
beginning to buzz like a disturbed hive.

Outside Belarab's house Lingard slowed his pace. The mist still hung. A
great sustained murmur pervaded it and the blurred forms of men were all
moving outward from the centre toward the palisades. Somewhere amongst
the buildings a gong clanged. D'Alcacer's raised voice was heard:

"What is happening?"

Lingard was passing then close to the prisoners' house. There was a
group of armed men below the verandah and above their heads he saw Mrs.
Travers by the side of d'Alcacer. The fire by which Lingard had spent
the night was extinguished, its embers scattered, and the bench itself
lay overturned. Mrs. Travers must have run up on the verandah at the
first alarm. She and d'Alcacer up there seemed to dominate the tumult
which was now subsiding. Lingard noticed the scarf across Mrs. Travers'
face. D'Alcacer was bareheaded. He shouted again:

"What's the matter?"

"I am going to see," shouted Lingard back.

He resisted the impulse to join those two, dominate the tumult, let it
roll away from under his feet—the mere life of men, vain like a dream
and interfering with the tremendous sense of his own existence.
He resisted it, he could hardly have told why. Even the sense of
self-preservation had abandoned him. There was a throng of people
pressing close about him yet careful not to get in his way. Surprise,
concern, doubt were depicted on all those faces; but there were some who
observed that the great white man making his way to the lagoon side of
the stockade wore a fixed smile. He asked at large:

"Can one see any distance over the water?"

One of Belarab's headmen who was nearest to him answered:

"The mist has thickened. If you see anything, Tuan, it will be but a
shadow of things."

The four sides of the stockade had been manned by that time. Lingard,
ascending the banquette, looked out and saw the lagoon shrouded in
white, without as much as a shadow on it, and so still that not even the
sound of water lapping the shore reached his ears. He found himself in
profound accord with this blind and soundless peace.

"Has anything at all been seen?" he asked incredulously.

Four men were produced at once who had seen a dark mass of boats moving
in the light of the dawn. Others were sent for. He hardly listened to
them. His thought escaped him and he stood motionless, looking out into
the unstirring mist pervaded by the perfect silence. Presently Belarab
joined him, escorted by three grave, swarthy men, himself dark-faced,
stroking his short grey beard with impenetrable composure. He said to
Lingard, "Your white man doesn't fight," to which Lingard answered,
"There is nothing to fight against. What your people have seen, Belarab,
were indeed but shadows on the water." Belarab murmured, "You ought to
have allowed me to make friends with Daman last night."

A faint uneasiness was stealing into Lingard's breast.

A moment later d'Alcacer came up, inconspicuously watched over by two
men with lances, and to his anxious inquiry Lingard said: "I don't think
there is anything going on. Listen how still everything is. The only way
of bringing the matter to a test would be to persuade Belarab to let
his men march out and make an attack on Tengga's stronghold this moment.
Then we would learn something. But I couldn't persuade Belarab to march
out into this fog. Indeed, an expedition like this might end badly. I
myself don't believe that all Tengga's people are on the lagoon. . . .
Where is Mrs. Travers?"

The question made d'Alcacer start by its abruptness which revealed the
woman's possession of that man's mind. "She is with Don Martin, who is
better but feels very weak. If we are to be given up, he will have to
be carried out to his fate. I can depict to myself the scene. Don Martin
carried shoulder high surrounded by those barbarians with spears, and
Mrs. Travers with myself walking on each side of the stretcher. Mrs.
Travers has declared to me her intention to go out with us."

"Oh, she has declared her intention," murmured Lingard, absent-mindedly.

D'Alcacer felt himself completely abandoned by that man. And within
two paces of him he noticed the group of Belarab and his three swarthy
attendants in their white robes, preserving an air of serene detachment.
For the first time since the stranding on the coast d'Alcacer's heart
sank within him. "But perhaps," he went on, "this Moor may not in the
end insist on giving us up to a cruel death, Captain Lingard."

"He wanted to give you up in the middle of the night, a few hours ago,"
said Lingard, without even looking at d'Alcacer who raised his hands
a little and let them fall. Lingard sat down on the breech of a heavy
piece mounted on a naval carriage so as to command the lagoon. He folded
his arms on his breast. D'Alcacer asked, gently:

"We have been reprieved then?"

"No," said Lingard. "It's I who was reprieved."

A long silence followed. Along the whole line of the manned stockade the
whisperings had ceased. The vibrations of the gong had died out, too.
Only the watchers perched in the highest boughs of the big tree made a
slight rustle amongst the leaves.