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The spare old man ran up the ladder so smartly that his bony feet did not seem to touch the steps. He stood by his commander, his hands behind his back; a figure indistinct but straight as an arrow. "Who was looking out?" asked Lingard. "Badroon, the Bugis," said Wasub, in his crisp, jerky manner. "I can hear nothing. Badroon heard the noise in his mind." "The night hides the boat."
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.
After that he said nothing more till Lingard murmured, "And the lady Immada?" Jaffir collected all his strength. "She hoped no more," he uttered, distinctly. "The order came to her while she mourned, veiled, apart. I didn't even see her face." Lingard swayed over the dying man so heavily that Wasub, standing near by, hastened to catch him by the shoulder.
They are here like fish within the stakes. Ya-wa! Who will bring the news and who will come to find the truth and perchance to carry off your body? You go alone, Tuan!" "There must be no fighting. It would be a calamity," insisted Lingard. "There is blood that must not be spilt." "Hear, Tuan!" exclaimed Wasub with heat. "The waters are running out now."
While he swam he felt his strength abandoning him. He managed to scramble on to a drifting log and lay on it like one who is dead, till we pulled him into one of our boats." Wasub ceased. It seemed to Lingard that it was impossible for mortal man to suffer more than he suffered in the succeeding moment of silence crowded by the mute images as of universal destruction.
The brig's head had been laid so as to pass a little to windward of the small islands of the Carimata group. They had been till then hidden in the night, but now both men on the lookout reported land ahead in one long cry. Lingard, standing to leeward abreast of the wheel, watched the islet first seen. When it was nearly abeam of the brig he gave his orders, and Wasub hurried off to the main deck.
It did not dispel the mysterious obscurity that had descended upon his fortunes so that his eyes could no longer see the work of his hands. The sadness of defeat pervaded the world. "And what could you do, O Wasub?" he said. "I could always call out 'Take care, Tuan." "And then for these charm-words of mine. Hey? Turn danger aside? What? But perchance you would die all the same.
Her behaviour had a stout trustworthiness about it, and she reminded one of a surefooted mountain-pony carrying over difficult ground a rider much bigger than himself. Wasub wiped the thwarts, ranged the mast and sail along the side, shipped the rowlocks. Lingard looked down at his old servant's spare shoulders upon which the light from above fell unsteady but vivid.
Thus, with a forced and tense watchfulness, Haji Wasub, serang of the brig Lightning, kept the captain's watch unwearied and wakeful, a slave to duty. In half an hour after sunset the darkness had taken complete possession of earth and heavens. The islands had melted into the night.
"I don't remember," said Lingard under his breath. "They are wonderful, those Malays. This morning he was only half alive, if that much, and now I understand he has been talking to Wasub for an hour. Will you go down to see him, sir, or shall I send a couple of men to carry him on deck?" Lingard looked bewildered for a moment. "Who on earth is he?" he asked.
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