Jaffir listened to it all without particular sympathy.  And when Jorgenson added, “It is in my mind, O Jaffir, to let her have her will now,” he answered by a “Yes, by Allah! let her go.  What does it matter?” of the greatest unconcern, till Jorgenson added: 

“Yes.  And she may carry the ring to the Rajah Laut.”

Jorgenson saw Jaffir, the grim and impassive Jaffir, give a perceptible start.  It seemed at first an impossible task to persuade Jaffir to part with the ring.  The notion was too monstrous to enter his mind, to move his heart.  But at last he surrendered in an awed whisper, “God is great.  Perhaps it is her destiny.”

Being a Wajo man he did not regard women as untrustworthy or unequal to a task requiring courage and judgment.  Once he got over the personal feeling he handed the ring to Jorgenson with only one reservation, “You know, Tuan, that she must on no account put it on her finger.”

“Let her hang it round her neck,” suggested Jorgenson, readily.

As Jorgenson moved toward the deckhouse it occurred to him that perhaps now that woman Tom Lingard had taken in tow might take it into her head to refuse to leave the Emma.  This did not disturb him very much.  All those people moved in the dark.  He himself at that particular moment was moving in the dark.  Beyond the simple wish to guide Lingard’s thought in the direction of Hassim and Immada, to help him to make up his mind at last to a ruthless fidelity to his purpose Jorgenson had no other aim.  The existence of those whites had no meaning on earth.  They were the sort of people that pass without leaving footprints.  That woman would have to act in ignorance.  And if she refused to go then in ignorance she would have to stay on board.  He would tell her nothing.

As a matter of fact, he discovered that Mrs. Travers would simply have nothing to do with him.  She would not listen to what he had to say.  She desired him, a mere weary voice confined in the darkness of the deck cabin, to go away and trouble her no more.  But the ghost of Jorgenson was not easily exorcised.  He, too, was a mere voice in the outer darkness, inexorable, insisting that she should come out on deck and listen.  At last he found the right words to say.

“It is something about Tom that I want to tell you.  You wish him well, don’t you?”

After this she could not refuse to come out on deck, and once there she listened patiently to that white ghost muttering and mumbling above her drooping head.

“It seems to me, Captain Jorgenson,” she said after he had ceased, “that you are simply trifling with me.  After your behaviour to me this morning, I can have nothing to say to you.”

“I have a canoe for you now,” mumbled Jorgenson.

“You have some new purpose in view now,” retorted Mrs. Travers with spirit.  “But you won’t make it clear to me.  What is it that you have in your mind?”

“Tom’s interest.”