“Tell him everything?” repeated Lingard.  “Everything!  Yesterday it might have been done.  Only yesterday!  Yesterday, did I say?  Only six hours ago—­only six hours ago I had something to tell.  You heard it.  And now it’s gone.  Tell him!  There’s nothing to tell any more.”  He remained for a time with bowed head, while before him Mrs. Travers, who had begun a gesture of protest, dropped her arms suddenly.  In a moment he looked up again.

“Keep the key,” he said, calmly, “and when the time comes step forward and take charge.  I am satisfied.”

“I would like to see clear through all this though,” muttered Carter again.  “And for how long are you leaving us, Captain?” Lingard made no answer.  Carter waited awhile.  “Come, sir,” he urged.  “I ought to have some notion.  What is it?  Two, three days?” Lingard started.

“Days,” he repeated.  “Ah, days.  What is it you want to know?  Two . . . three—­what did the old fellow say—­perhaps for life.”  This was spoken so low that no one but Carter heard the last words.—­“Do you mean it?” he murmured.  Lingard nodded.—­“Wait as long as you can—­then go,” he said in the same hardly audible voice.  “Go where?”—­“Where you like, nearest port, any port.”—­“Very good.  That’s something plain at any rate,” commented the young man with imperturbable good humour.

“I go, O Hassim!” began Lingard and the Malay made a slow inclination of the head which he did not raise again till Lingard had ceased speaking.  He betrayed neither surprise nor any other emotion while Lingard in a few concise and sharp sentences made him acquainted with his purpose to bring about singlehanded the release of the prisoners.  When Lingard had ended with the words:  “And you must find a way to help me in the time of trouble, O Rajah Hassim,” he looked up and said: 

“Good.  You never asked me for anything before.”

He smiled at his white friend.  There was something subtle in the smile and afterward an added firmness in the repose of the lips.  Immada moved a step forward.  She looked at Lingard with terror in her black and dilated eyes.  She exclaimed in a voice whose vibration startled the hearts of all the hearers with an indefinable sense of alarm, “He will perish, Hassim!  He will perish alone!”

“No,” said Hassim.  “Thy fear is as vain to-night as it was at sunrise.  He shall not perish alone.”

Her eyelids dropped slowly.  From her veiled eyes the tears fell, vanishing in the silence.  Lingard’s forehead became furrowed by folds that seemed to contain an infinity of sombre thoughts.  “Remember, O Hassim, that when I promised you to take you back to your country you promised me to be a friend to all white men.  A friend to all whites who are of my people, forever.”

“My memory is good, O Tuan,” said Hassim; “I am not yet back in my country, but is not everyone the ruler of his own heart?  Promises made by a man of noble birth live as long as the speaker endures.”