early morning light, white from head to foot in a perfectly clean suit of clothes which seemed hardly to contain any limbs, freshly shaven (Jorgenson’s sunken cheeks with their withered colouring always had a sort of gloss as though he had the habit of shaving every two hours or so), he looked as immaculate as though he had been indeed a pure spirit superior to the soiling contacts of the material earth.  He was disturbing but he was not repulsive.  He gave no sign of greeting.

Lingard addressed him at once.

“You have had a regular staircase built up the side of the hulk, Jorgenson,” he said.  “It was very convenient for us to come aboard now, but in case of an attack don’t you think . . .”

“I did think.”  There was nothing so dispassionate in the world as the voice of Captain H. C. Jorgenson, ex Barque Wild Rose, since he had recrossed the Waters of Oblivion to step back into the life of men.  “I did think, but since I don’t want to make trouble. . . .”

“Oh, you don’t want to make trouble,” interrupted Lingard.

“No.  Don’t believe in it.  Do you, King Tom?”

“I may have to make trouble.”

“So you came up here in this small dinghy of yours like this to start making trouble, did you?”

“What’s the matter with you?  Don’t you know me yet, Jorgenson?”

“I thought I knew you.  How could I tell that a man like you would come along for a fight bringing a woman with him?”

“This lady is Mrs. Travers,” said Lingard.  “The wife of one of the luckless gentlemen Daman got hold of last evening. . . .  This is Jorgenson, the friend of whom I have been telling you, Mrs. Travers.”

Mrs. Travers smiled faintly.  Her eyes roamed far and near and the strangeness of her surroundings, the overpowering curiosity, the conflict of interest and doubt gave her the aspect of one still new to life, presenting an innocent and naive attitude before the surprises of experience.  She looked very guileless and youthful between those two men.  Lingard gazed at her with that unconscious tenderness mingled with wonder, which some men manifest toward girlhood.  There was nothing of a conqueror of kingdoms in his bearing.  Jorgenson preserved his amazing abstraction which seemed neither to hear nor see anything.  But, evidently, he kept a mysterious grip on events in the world of living men because he asked very naturally: 

“How did she get away?”

“The lady wasn’t on the sandbank,” explained Lingard, curtly.

“What sandbank?” muttered Jorgenson, perfunctorily. . . .  “Is the yacht looted, Tom?”

“Nothing of the kind,” said Lingard.

“Ah, many dead?” inquired Jorgenson.

“I tell you there was nothing of the kind,” said Lingard, impatiently.

“What?  No fight!” inquired Jorgenson again without the slightest sign of animation.

“No.”

“And you a fighting man.”