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The paddles struck the water together. The canoe darted forward and went on steadily crossing the river with a sideways motion made up of its own speed and the downward drift of the current. Lingard watched the shore astern. The woman shook her hand at him, and then squatted at the feet of the man who stood motionless.
The booming report, nearly over his head, of the brig's eighteen-pounder interrupted him. A round puff of white vapour, spreading itself lazily, clung in fading shreds about the foreyard. Lingard, turning half round in the stern sheets, looked at the smoke on the shore. Carter remained silent, staring sleepily at the yacht they were approaching.
Again his voice changed as if two different souls had been flitting in and out of his body. "No, no, kill the tiger and then the stripes may be counted without fear one by one, thus." He pointed a frail brown finger and, abruptly, made a mirthless dry sound as if a rattle had been sprung in his throat. "The wretches are many," said Lingard. "Nay, Tuan.
It seemed to him that the light was dying prematurely out of the world and that the air was already dead. "Of course," he went on, "I shall see to it that you don't starve." "You don't mean to say that I must live here, Captain Lingard?" said Willems, in a kind of mechanical voice without any inflections. "Did you ever hear me say something I did not mean?" asked Lingard.
At the sight of the ring Lingard would return to Hassim and Immada, now captives, too, though Jorgenson certainly did not think them in any serious danger. What had happened really was that Tengga was now holding hostages, and those Jorgenson looked upon as Lingard's own people. They were his. He had gone in with them deep, very deep.
Her tone was soft and Lingard received the breath of those words like a caress on his face. D'Alcacer, in the Cage, made still another effort to keep up his pacing. He didn't want to give Mr. Travers the slightest excuse for sitting up again and looking round. "That I should live to hear anybody say they cared anything for what was mine!" whispered Lingard.
It lay about her as though she had been set apart within a magic circle. It cut off but it did not protect. The footsteps that she knew how to distinguish above all others on that deck were heard suddenly behind her. She did not turn her head. Since that afternoon when the gentlemen, as Lingard called them, had been brought on board, Mrs. Travers and Lingard had not exchanged one significant word.
It appears that on his return home, after the meeting with Lingard, Hassim found his relative dying and a strong party formed to oppose his rightful successor. The old Rajah Tulla died late at night and as Jaffir put it before the sun rose there were already blows exchanged in the courtyard of the ruler's dalam.
"Crossing the Styx perhaps." He heard Mr. Travers utter an unmoved "Very likely," which he did not expect. Lingard, his hand on the tiller, sat like a man of stone. "Then your point of view has changed," whispered d'Alcacer. "I told my wife to make an offer," went on the earnest whisper of the other man. "A sum of money. But to tell you the truth I don't believe very much in its success."
And here there is no further necessity for eaves-dropping. All persons except Mike and Esther will please leave the porch. On the morning after the dinner with which he bade farewell to Messrs. Lingard and Fields, Henry awoke at his usual hour to a very unusual feeling. For the first time in his life he could stay in bed as long as he pleased.
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