It was a distinct overture, a disclosure of the man’s innermost mind.  Jorgenson, of course, had met it with a profound silence.  His task was not diplomacy but the care of stores.

After the effort of connected mental processes in order to bring about Mrs. Travers’ departure he was anxious to dismiss the whole matter from his mind.  The last thought he gave to it was severely practical.  It occurred to him that it would be advisable to attract in some way or other Lingard’s attention to the lagoon.  In the language of the sea a single rocket is properly a signal of distress, but, in the circumstances, a group of three sent up simultaneously would convey a warning.  He gave his orders and watched the rockets go up finely with a trail of red sparks, a bursting of white stars high up in the air, and three loud reports in quick succession.  Then he resumed his pacing of the whole length of the hulk, confident that after this Tom would guess that something was up and set a close watch over the lagoon.  No doubt these mysterious rockets would have a disturbing effect on Tengga and his friends and cause a great excitement in the Settlement; but for that Jorgenson did not care.  The Settlement was already in such a turmoil that a little more excitement did not matter.  What Jorgenson did not expect, however, was the sound of a musket-shot fired from the jungle facing the bows of the Emma.  It caused him to stop dead short.  He had heard distinctly the bullet strike the curve of the bow forward.  “Some hot-headed ass fired that,” he said to himself, contemptuously.  It simply disclosed to him the fact that he was already besieged on the shore side and set at rest his doubts as to the length Tengga was prepared to go.  Any length!  Of course there was still time for Tom to put everything right with six words, unless . . .  Jorgenson smiled, grimly, in the dark and resumed his tireless pacing.

What amused him was to observe the fire which had been burning night and day before Tengga’s residence suddenly extinguished.  He pictured to himself the wild rush with bamboo buckets to the lagoon shore, the confusion, the hurry and jostling in a great hissing of water midst clouds of steam.  The image of the fat Tengga’s consternation appealed to Jorgenson’s sense of humour for about five seconds.  Then he took up the binoculars from the roof of the deckhouse.

The bursting of the three white stars over the lagoon had given him a momentary glimpse of the black speck of the canoe taking over Mrs. Travers.  He couldn’t find it again with the glass, it was too dark; but the part of the shore for which it was steered would be somewhere near the angle of Belarab’s stockade nearest to the beach.  This Jorgenson could make out in the faint rosy glare of fires burning inside.  Jorgenson was certain that Lingard was looking toward the Emma through the most convenient loophole he could find.