“Ough!  You would give the blues to the funny man of a blooming circus.  What would my missus say if I wasn’t to turn up never at all?”—­“She would get another man; there’s always plenty of fools about.”  A quiet and mirthless chuckle was heard in the pause of shocked silence.  Lingard, with his hand on the door, remained still.  Further off a growl burst out:  “I do hate to be chucked in the dark aboard a strange ship.  I wonder where they keep their fresh water.  Can’t get any sense out of them silly niggers.  We don’t seem to be more account here than a lot of cattle.  Likely as not we’ll have to berth on this blooming quarter-deck for God knows how long.”  Then again very near Lingard the first voice said, deadened discreetly—­“There’s something curious about this here brig turning up sudden-like, ain’t there?  And that skipper of her—­now?  What kind of a man is he—­anyhow?”

“Oh, he’s one of them skippers going about loose.  The brig’s his own, I am thinking.  He just goes about in her looking for what he may pick up honest or dishonest.  My brother-in-law has served two commissions in these seas, and was telling me awful yarns about what’s going on in them God-forsaken parts.  Likely he lied, though.  Them man-of-war’s men are a holy terror for yarns.  Bless you, what do I care who this skipper is?  Let him do his best and don’t trouble your head.  You won’t see him again in your life once we get clear.”

“And can he do anything for the owner?” asked the first voice again.—­“Can he!  We can do nothing—­that’s one thing certain.  The owner may be lying clubbed to death this very minute for all we know.  By all accounts these savages here are a crool murdering lot.  Mind you, I am sorry for him as much as anybody.”—­“Aye, aye,” muttered the other, approvingly.—­“He may not have been ready, poor man,” began again the reasonable voice.  Lingard heard a deep sigh.—­“If there’s anything as can be done for him, the owner’s wife she’s got to fix it up with this ’ere skipper.  Under Providence he may serve her turn.”

Lingard flung open the cabin door, entered, and, with a slam, shut the darkness out.

“I am, under Providence, to serve your turn,” he said after standing very still for a while, with his eyes upon Mrs. Travers.  The brig’s swing-lamp lighted the cabin with an extraordinary brilliance.  Mrs. Travers had thrown back her hood.  The radiant brightness of the little place enfolded her so close, clung to her with such force that it might have been part of her very essence.  There were no shadows on her face; it was fiercely lighted, hermetically closed, of impenetrable fairness.