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Jaffir looked that way, too, and as he turned his head he saw Tuan Jorgenson, in the midst of twenty spear-blades that could in an instant have been driven into his breast, put the cigar in his mouth and jump down the hatchway. At that moment Rajah Hassim gave Jaffir a push toward the side and Jaffir leaped overboard.
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.
It was, however, in pursuance of a very distinct aim that Jorgenson had gone forward again to seek Jaffir. The first remark he had to offer to Jaffir's consideration was that the only person in the world who had the remotest chance of reaching Belarab's gate on that night was that tall white woman the Rajah Laut had brought on board, the wife of one of the captive white chiefs.
Indeed, you have enough with you to make a great fight but not enough for victory." "God alone gives victory," said suddenly the voice of Jaffir, who, very still at Jorgenson's elbow, had been listening to the conversation. "Very true," was the answer in an extremely conventional tone. "Will you come ashore, O white man; and be the leader of chiefs?"
"Yes. But it did not work this time. And if I go and tell Jaffir why he will be able to tell his Rajah, O Wasub, since you say that he is going to die. . . . I wonder where they will meet," he muttered to himself. Once more Wasub raised his eyes to Lingard's face. "Paradise is the lot of all True Believers," he whispered, firm in his simple faith.
For more than an hour nobody approached that closed door till Carter coming down the companion stairs spoke without attempting to open it. "Are you there, sir?" The answer, "You may come in," comforted the young man by its strong resonance. He went in. "Well?" "Jaffir is dead. This moment. I thought you would want to know."
It seemed at first an impossible task to persuade Jaffir to part with the ring. The notion was too monstrous to enter his mind, to move his heart. But at last he surrendered in an awed whisper, "God is great. Perhaps it is her destiny." Being a Wajo man he did not regard women as untrustworthy or unequal to a task requiring courage and judgment.
Jaffir seemed unaware of anything, and went on staring at the beam. "Can you hear me, O Jaffir?" asked Lingard. "I hear." "I never had the ring. Who could bring it to me?" "We gave it to the white woman may Jehannum be her lot!" "No! It shall be my lot," said Lingard with despairing force, while Wasub raised both his hands in dismay.
Not only himself but anybody from the Emma would be sure to be rushed upon and speared in twenty places. He reflected for a moment in silence. "Even you, Tuan, could not accomplish the feat." "True," muttered Jorgenson. When, after a period of meditation, he looked round, Jaffir was no longer by his side.
"Tuan, it is necessary that you should hear Jaffir," he said, patiently. "Is he going to die?" asked Lingard in a low, cautious tone as though he were afraid of the sound of his own voice. "Who can tell?" Wasub's voice sounded more patient than ever. "There is no wound on his body but, O Tuan, he does not wish to live." "Abandoned by his God," muttered Lingard to himself.
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