“I wouldn’t question that for a moment,” conceded d’Alcacer.  “A point of honour is not to be discussed.  But there is such a thing as humanity, too.  To be delivered up helplessly. . . .”

“Perhaps!” interrupted Lingard.  “But you needn’t feel hopeless.  I am not at liberty to give up my life for your own.  Mrs. Travers knows why.  That, too, is engaged.”

“Always on your honour?”

“I don’t know.  A promise is a promise.”

“Nobody can be held to the impossible,” remarked d’Alcacer.

“Impossible!  What is impossible?  I don’t know it.  I am not a man to talk of the impossible or dodge behind it.  I did not bring you here.”

D’Alcacer lowered his head for a moment.  “I have finished,” he said, gravely.  “That much I had to say.  I hope you don’t think I have appeared unduly anxious.”

“It’s the best policy, too.”  Mrs. Travers made herself heard suddenly.  Nothing of her moved but her lips, she did not even raise her eyes.  “It’s the only possible policy.  You believe me, Mr. d’Alcacer? . . .”  He made an almost imperceptible movement of the head. . . .  “Well, then, I put all my hope in you, Mr. d’Alcacer, to get this over as easily as possible and save us all from some odious scene.  You think perhaps that it is I who ought to. . . .”

“No, no!  I don’t think so,” interrupted d’Alcacer.  “It would be impossible.”

“I am afraid it would,” she admitted, nervously.

D’Alcacer made a gesture as if to beg her to say no more and at once crossed over to Mr. Travers’ side of the Cage.  He did not want to give himself time to think about his task.  Mr. Travers was sitting up on the camp bedstead with a light cotton sheet over his legs.  He stared at nothing, and on approaching him d’Alcacer disregarded the slight sinking of his own heart at this aspect which seemed to be that of extreme terror.  “This is awful,” he thought.  The man kept as still as a hare in its form.

The impressed d’Alcacer had to make an effort to bring himself to tap him lightly on the shoulder.

“The moment has come, Travers, to show some fortitude,” he said with easy intimacy.  Mr. Travers looked up swiftly.  “I have just been talking to your wife.  She had a communication from Captain Lingard for us both.  It remains for us now to preserve as much as possible our dignity.  I hope that if necessary we will both know how to die.”

In a moment of profound stillness, d’Alcacer had time to wonder whether his face was as stony in expression as the one upturned to him.  But suddenly a smile appeared on it, which was certainly the last thing d’Alcacer expected to see.  An indubitable smile.  A slightly contemptuous smile.