in a dream when she perceived beyond the rails of its verandah and visible from head to foot two figures in an armour of chain mail with pointed steel helmets crested with white and black feathers and guarding the closed door.  A high bench draped in turkey cloth stood in an open space of the great audience shed.  Lingard led her up to it, Jorgenson on her other side closed the parasol calmly, and when she sat down between them the whole throng before her eyes sank to the ground with one accord disclosing in the distance of the courtyard a lonely figure leaning against the smooth trunk of a tree.  A white cloth was fastened round his head by a yellow cord.  Its pointed ends fell on his shoulders, framing a thin dark face with large eyes, a silk cloak striped black and white fell to his feet, and in the distance he looked aloof and mysterious in his erect and careless attitude suggesting assurance and power.

Lingard, bending slightly, whispered into Mrs. Travers’ ear that that man, apart and dominating the scene, was Daman, the supreme leader of the Illanuns, the one who had ordered the capture of those gentlemen in order perhaps to force his hand.  The two barbarous, half-naked figures covered with ornaments and charms, squatting at his feet with their heads enfolded in crimson and gold handkerchiefs and with straight swords lying across their knees, were the Pangerans who carried out the order, and had brought the captives into the lagoon.  But the two men in chain armour on watch outside the door of the small house were Belarab’s two particular body-guards, who got themselves up in that way only on very great occasions.  They were the outward and visible sign that the prisoners were in Belarab’s keeping, and this was good, so far.  The pity was that the Great Chief himself was not there.  Then Lingard assumed a formal pose and Mrs. Travers stared into the great courtyard and with rows and rows of faces ranged on the ground at her feet felt a little giddy for a moment.

Every movement had died in the crowd.  Even the eyes were still under the variegated mass of coloured headkerchiefs:  while beyond the open gate a noble palm tree looked intensely black against the glitter of the lagoon and the pale incandescence of the sky.  Mrs. Travers gazing that way wondered at the absence of Hassim and Immada.  But the girl might have been somewhere within one of the houses with the ladies of Belarab’s stockade.  Then suddenly Mrs. Travers became aware that another bench had been brought out and was already occupied by five men dressed in gorgeous silks, and embroidered velvets, round-faced and grave.  Their hands reposed on their knees; but one amongst them clad in a white robe and with a large nearly black turban on his head leaned forward a little with his chin in his hand.  His cheeks were sunken and his eyes remained fixed on the ground as if to avoid looking at the infidel woman.