Hassim was saddened by the absence from his side of that man who once had carried what he thought would be his last message to his friend.  It had not been the last.  He had lived to cherish new hopes and to face new troubles and, perchance, to frame another message yet, while death knocked with the hands of armed enemies at the gate.  The breeze steadied; the succeeding swells swung the canoe smoothly up the unbroken ridges of water travelling apace along the land.  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.  A long way ahead of the canoe and holding the same course, the brig’s dinghy ran with broad lug extended, making for that narrow and winding passage between the coast and the southern shoals, which led to the mouth of the creek connecting the lagoon with the sea.

Thus on that starless night the Shallows were peopled by uneasy souls.  The thick veil of clouds stretched over them, cut them off from the rest of the universe.  At times Mrs. Travers had in the darkness the impression of dizzy speed, and again it seemed to her that the boat was standing still, that everything in the world was standing still and only her fancy roamed free from all trammels.  Lingard, perfectly motionless by her side, steered, shaping his course by the feel of the wind.  Presently he perceived ahead a ghostly flicker of faint, livid light which the earth seemed to throw up against the uniform blackness of the sky.  The dinghy was approaching the expanse of the Shallows.  The confused clamour of broken water deepened its note.

“How long are we going to sail like this?” asked Mrs. Travers, gently.  She did not recognize the voice that pronounced the word “Always” in answer to her question.  It had the impersonal ring of a voice without a master.  Her heart beat fast.

“Captain Lingard!” she cried.

“Yes.  What?” he said, nervously, as if startled out of a dream.

“I asked you how long we were going to sail like this,” she repeated, distinctly.

“If the breeze holds we shall be in the lagoon soon after daybreak.  That will be the right time, too.  I shall leave you on board the hulk with Jorgenson.”

“And you?  What will you do?” she asked.  She had to wait for a while.

“I will do what I can,” she heard him say at last.  There was another pause.  “All I can,” he added.

The breeze dropped, the sail fluttered.

“I have perfect confidence in you,” she said.  “But are you certain of success?”

“No.”

The futility of her question came home to Mrs. Travers.  In a few hours of life she had been torn away from all her certitudes, flung into a world of improbabilities.  This thought instead of augmenting her distress seemed to soothe her.  What she experienced was not doubt and it was not fear.  It was something else.  It might have been only a great fatigue.