He saw a mysterious iniquity in a dangerous relation to himself and began to lose his head.  What he really wanted was to have his existence left intact, for his own cherishing and pride.  It was a moral aspiration, but in his alarm the native grossness of his nature came clattering out like a devil out of a trap.  He would blow the gaff, split, give away the whole show, he would back up honest people, kiss the book, say what he thought, let all the world know . . . and when he paused to draw breath, all around him was silent and still.  Before the impetus of that respectable passion his words were scattered like chaff driven by a gale and rushed headlong into the night of the Shallows.  And in the great obscurity, imperturbable, it heard him say he “washed his hands of everything.”

“And the brig?” asked Lingard, suddenly.

Shaw was checked.  For a second the seaman in him instinctively admitted the claim of the ship.

“The brig.  The brig.  She’s right enough,” he mumbled.  He had nothing to say against the brig—­not he.  She wasn’t like the big ships he was used to, but of her kind the best craft he ever. . . .  And with a brusque return upon himself, he protested that he had been decoyed on board under false pretences.  It was as bad as being shanghaied when in liquor.  It was—­upon his soul.  And into a craft next thing to a pirate!  That was the name for it or his own name was not Shaw.  He said this glaring owlishly.  Lingard, perfectly still and mute, bore the blows without a sign.

The silly fuss of that man seared his very soul.  There was no end to this plague of fools coming to him from the forgotten ends of the earth.  A fellow like that could not be told.  No one could be told.  Blind they came and blind they would go out.  He admitted reluctantly, but without doubt, that as if pushed by a force from outside he would have to try and save two of them.  To this end he foresaw the probable need of leaving his brig for a time.  He would have to leave her with that man.  The mate.  He had engaged him himself—­to make his insurance valid—­to be able sometimes to speak—­to have near him.  Who would have believed such a fool-man could exist on the face of the sea!  Who?  Leave the brig with him.  The brig!

Ever since sunset, the breeze kept off by the heat of the day had been trying to re-establish in the darkness its sway over the Shoals.  Its approaches had been heard in the night, its patient murmurs, its foiled sighs; but now a surprisingly heavy puff came in a free rush as if, far away there to the northward, the last defence of the calm had been victoriously carried.  The flames borne down streamed bluishly, horizontal and noisy at the end of tall sticks, like fluttering pennants; and behold, the shadows on the deck went mad and jostled each other as if trying to escape from a doomed craft, the darkness, held up dome-like by the brilliant glare, seemed to tumble headlong upon the brig in an overwhelming downfall, the men stood swaying as if ready to fall under the ruins of a black and noiseless disaster.  The blurred outlines of the brig, the masts, the rigging, seemed to shudder in the terror of coming extinction—­and then the darkness leaped upward again, the shadows returned to their places, the men were seen distinct, swarthy, with calm faces, with glittering eyeballs.  The destruction in the breath had passed, was gone.