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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.
On the red shield above his head the gilt sheaf of thunderbolts darting between the initials of his name seemed to be aimed straight at the nape of his neck as he sat with bared elbows spread on the table, poring over the crumpled sheets. The letter began: Hassim and Immada are going out to-night to look for you. You are behind your time and every passing day makes things worse.
"It isn't for me to talk with great chiefs," Jorgenson returned, cautiously. "But Tengga is a friend," argued the nocturnal messenger. "And by that fire there are other friends your friends, the Rajah Hassim and the lady Immada, who send you their greetings and who expect their eyes to rest on you before sunrise."
"Bear thy fear in patience," said Hassim, rapidly, to his sister. "They are to be saved. You have said it," Lingard pronounced aloud, suddenly. He felt like a swimmer who, in the midst of superhuman efforts to reach the shore, perceives that the undertow is taking him to sea. He would go with the mysterious current; he would go swiftly and see the end, the fulfilment both blissful and terrible.
Jorgenson kept silent as if waiting for a supreme inspiration and suddenly he spoke in his other-world voice: "Tell Tengga from me that as long as he brings with him Rajah Hassim and the Rajah's sister, he and his chief men will be welcome on deck here, no matter how many boats come along with them. For that I do not care. You may go now." A profound silence succeeded.
They progressed slowly; but Immada's heart was more weary than her arms, and Hassim, dipping the blade of his paddle without a splash, peered right and left, trying to make out the shadowy forms of islets.
How strange, the same day, and almost the same hour, I was penning my doubts and difficulties, when a letter arrives from Lord Aberdeen appointing me confidential agent in Borneo to her majesty, and directing me to proceed to the capital, with a letter addressed to the sultan and the Rajah Muda Hassim, in reply to the documents requesting the assistance of the British government to effect the suppression of piracy.
He waited a while, then: "What is the message I am to take?" he asked. "Tell the whole tale to the Rajah Hassim," said Lingard. "And tell him to make his way here with the lady his sister secretly and with speed. The time of great trouble has come. Let us, at least, be together." "Right! Right!" Jaffir approved, heartily. "To die alone under the weight of one's enemies is a dreadful fate."
He began to talk about you and hinted that perhaps you will never come. "And no matter," says he, "here is Rajah Hassim and the Lady Immada and we would fight for them if no white man was left in the world. Only we must have something to fight with." He pretended then to forget me altogether and talked with Hassim while I sat listening. He began to boast how well he got along the Bruni coast.
Travers." Hassim and Immada looked up. "You see," exclaimed Lingard. "What did I tell you? He's keeping his eye on me! On board my own ship. Am I dreaming? Am I in a fever? Tell him to come down," he said after a pause. Mrs. Travers did so and Lingard thought her voice very commanding and very sweet. "There's nothing in the world I love so much as this brig," he went on. "Nothing in the world.
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