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Updated: June 1, 2025
Presently the dark shade of the creek, walled in by the impenetrable forest, closed round them and the splash of the paddles echoed in the still, damp air. "How do you think this awful accident happened?" asked d'Alcacer, who had been sitting silent by Lingard's side. "What is an accident?" said Lingard with a great effort. "Where did you hear of such a thing? Accident!
We couldn't even tell whether you and d'Alcacer were still alive till we arrived here. You might have been actually murdered on the sandbank, after Rajah Hassim and that girl had gone away; or killed while going up the river. And I wanted to know at once, as soon as possible. It was a matter of impulse. I went off in what I stood in without delaying a moment." "Yes," said Mr. Travers.
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?"
On my word I have," declared Lingard with an air of good temper. "Ah!" said d'Alcacer, reflectively, "then your reserve is a matter of pledged faith of of honour?" Lingard also appeared thoughtful for a moment. "You may put it that way. And I owe nothing to a man who couldn't see my hand when I put it out to him as I came aboard."
D'Alcacer was a man of nearly forty, lean and sallow, with hollow eyes and a drooping brown moustache. His gaze was penetrating and direct, his smile frequent and fleeting. He observed Lingard with great interest.
"I don't know why I have been telling you all this," he said, apologetically. "I hope I have not been intruding on your thoughts." "I can think of nothing," Lingard declared, unexpectedly. "I only know that your voice was friendly; and for the rest " "One must get through a night like this somehow," said d'Alcacer. "The very stars seem to lag on their way.
Immediately he looked round with suspicion. No one smiled. D'Alcacer, courteous and nonchalant, lounged up close to Mrs. Travers' elbow. "If she is a princess, then this man is a knight," he murmured with conviction. "A knight as I live! A descendant of the immortal hidalgo errant upon the sea. It would be good for us to have him for a friend. Seriously I think that you ought "
"What do you know?" "Men and women, Captain Lingard, which you. . . ." "I don't know any woman." "You have spoken the strictest truth there," said d'Alcacer, and for the first time Lingard turned his head slowly and looked at his neighbour on the bench. "Do you think she is as good as mad, too?" asked Lingard in a startled voice. D'Alcacer let escape a low exclamation.
And these men who, two hours before had never seen each other, stood for a moment close together, antagonistic, as if they had been life-long enemies, one short, dapper and glaring upward, the other towering heavily, and looking down in contempt and anger. Mr. d'Alcacer, without taking his eyes off them, bent low over the deck chair.
"There is nothing secret in this expedition, but I prefer not to call any one. Perhaps you wouldn't mind pulling me off yourself in our small boat." It seemed to her that d'Alcacer showed some hesitation. She added: "It has no importance, you know." He bowed his assent and preceded her down the side in silence.
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