He pointed at Hassim and Immada.  The girl seemed frightened.  Hassim looked on calm and intelligent with inexhaustible patience.  Lingard’s voice fell suddenly.

“And by heavens they may be right.  Who knows?  You?  Do you know?  They have waited for years.  Look.  They are waiting with heavy hearts.  Do you think that I don’t care?  Ought I to have kept it all in—­told no one—­no one—­not even you?  Are they waiting for what will never come now?”

Mrs. Travers rose and moved quickly round the table.  “Can we give anything to this—­this Daman or these other men?  We could give them more than they could think of asking.  I—­my husband. . . .”

“Don’t talk to me of your husband,” he said, roughly.  “You don’t know what you are doing.”  She confronted the sombre anger of his eyes—­“But I must,” she asserted with heat.—­“Must,” he mused, noticing that she was only half a head less tall than himself.  “Must!  Oh, yes.  Of course, you must.  Must!  Yes.  But I don’t want to hear.  Give!  What can you give?  You may have all the treasures of the world for all I know.  No!  You can’t give anything. . . .”

“I was thinking of your difficulty when I spoke,” she interrupted.  His eyes wandered downward following the line of her shoulder.—­“Of me—­of me!” he repeated.

All this was said almost in whispers.  The sound of slow footsteps was heard on deck above their heads.  Lingard turned his face to the open skylight.

“On deck there!  Any wind?”

All was still for a moment.  Somebody above answered in a leisurely tone: 

“A steady little draught from the northward.”

Then after a pause added in a mutter: 

“Pitch dark.”

“Aye, dark enough,” murmured Lingard.  He must do something.  Now.  At once.  The world was waiting.  The world full of hopes and fear.  What should he do?  Instead of answering that question he traced the ungleaming coils of her twisted hair and became fascinated by a stray lock at her neck.  What should he do?  No one to leave his brig to.  The voice that had answered his question was Carter’s voice.  “He is hanging about keeping his eye on me,” he said to Mrs. Travers.  She shook her head and tried to smile.  The man above coughed discreetly.  “No,” said Lingard, “you must understand that you have nothing to give.”

The man on deck who seemed to have lingered by the skylight was heard saying quietly, “I am at hand if you want me, Mrs. 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.  If I lost her I would have no standing room on the earth for my feet.  You don’t understand this.  You can’t.”