She saw, she imagined, she even admitted now the reality of those things no longer a mere pageant marshalled for her vision with barbarous splendour and savage emphasis.  She questioned it no longer—­but she did not feel it in her soul any more than one feels the depth of the sea under its peaceful glitter or the turmoil of its grey fury.  Her eyes ranged afar, unbelieving and fearful—­and then all at once she became aware of the empty Cage with its interior in disorder, the camp bedsteads not taken away, a pillow lying on the deck, the dying flame like a shred of dull yellow stuff inside the lamp left hanging over the table.  The whole struck her as squalid and as if already decayed, a flimsy and idle phantasy.  But Jorgenson, seated on the deck with his back to it, was not idle.  His occupation, too, seemed fantastic and so truly childish that her heart sank at the man’s utter absorption in it.  Jorgenson had before him, stretched on the deck, several bits of rather thin and dirty-looking rope of different lengths from a couple of inches to about a foot.  He had (an idiot might have amused himself in that way) set fire to the ends of them.  They smouldered with amazing energy, emitting now and then a splutter, and in the calm air within the bulwarks sent up very slender, exactly parallel threads of smoke, each with a vanishing curl at the end; and the absorption with which Jorgenson gave himself up to that pastime was enough to shake all confidence in his sanity.

In one half-opened hand he was holding the watch.  He was also provided with a scrap of paper and the stump of a pencil.  Mrs. Travers was confident that he did not either hear or see her.

“Captain Jorgenson, you no doubt think. . . .”

He tried to wave her away with the stump of the pencil.  He did not want to be interrupted in his strange occupation.  He was playing very gravely indeed with those bits of string.  “I lighted them all together,” he murmured, keeping one eye on the dial of the watch.  Just then the shortest piece of string went out, utterly consumed.  Jorgenson made a hasty note and remained still while Mrs. Travers looked at him with stony eyes thinking that nothing in the world was any use.  The other threads of smoke went on vanishing in spirals before the attentive Jorgenson.

“What are you doing?” asked Mrs. Travers, drearily.

“Timing match . . . precaution. . . .”

He had never in Mrs. Travers’ experience been less spectral than then.  He displayed a weakness of the flesh.  He was impatient at her intrusion.  He divided his attention between the threads of smoke and the face of the watch with such interest that the sudden reports of several guns breaking for the first time for days the stillness of the lagoon and the illusion of the painted scene failed to make him raise his head.  He only jerked it sideways a little.  Mrs. Travers stared at the wisps of white vapour floating above Belarab’s stockade.  The series of sharp detonations ceased and their combined echoes came back over the lagoon like a long-drawn and rushing sigh.