“What’s this?” cried Mrs. Travers.

“Belarab’s come home,” said Jorgenson.

The last thread of smoke disappeared and Jorgenson got up.  He had lost all interest in the watch and thrust it carelessly into his pocket, together with the bit of paper and the stump of pencil.  He had resumed his aloofness from the life of men, but approaching the bulwark he condescended to look toward Belarab’s stockade.

“Yes, he is home,” he said very low.

“What’s going to happen?” cried Mrs. Travers.  “What’s to be done?” Jorgenson kept up his appearance of communing with himself.

“I know what to do,” he mumbled.

“You are lucky,” said Mrs. Travers, with intense bitterness.

It seemed to her that she was abandoned by all the world.  The opposite shore of the lagoon had resumed its aspect of a painted scene that would never roll up to disclose the truth behind its blinding and soulless splendour.  It seemed to her that she had said her last words to all of them:  to d’Alcacer, to her husband, to Lingard himself—­and that they had all gone behind the curtain forever out of her sight.  Of all the white men Jorgenson alone was left, that man who had done with life so completely that his mere presence robbed it of all heat and mystery, leaving nothing but its terrible, its revolting insignificance.  And Mrs. Travers was ready for revolt.  She cried with suppressed passion: 

“Are you aware, Captain Jorgenson, that I am alive?”

He turned his eyes on her, and for a moment she was daunted by their cold glassiness.  But before they could drive her away, something like the gleam of a spark gave them an instant’s animation.

“I want to go and join them.  I want to go ashore,” she said, firmly.  “There!”

Her bare and extended arm pointed across the lagoon, and Jorgenson’s resurrected eyes glided along the white limb and wandered off into space.

“No boat,” he muttered.

“There must be a canoe.  I know there is a canoe.  I want it.”

She stepped forward compelling, commanding, trying to concentrate in her glance all her will power, the sense of her own right to dispose of herself and her claim to be served to the last moment of her life.  It was as if she had done nothing.  Jorgenson didn’t flinch.

“Which of them are you after?” asked his blank, unringing voice.

She continued to look at him; her face had stiffened into a severe mask; she managed to say distinctly: 

“I suppose you have been asking yourself that question for some time, Captain Jorgenson?”

“No.  I am asking you now.”

His face disclosed nothing to Mrs. Travers’ bold and weary eyes.  “What could you do over there?” Jorgenson added as merciless, as irrepressible, and sincere as though he were the embodiment of that inner voice that speaks in all of us at times and, like Jorgenson, is offensive and difficult to answer.