“This is the sort of freedom of which nothing can deprive us,” he observed, looking hard at the manner in which the scarf was drawn across Mrs. Travers’ face.  “It’s possible I was far away,” he went on, “but I can assure you that I don’t know where I was.  Less than an hour ago we had a great excitement here about some rockets, but I didn’t share in it.  There was no one I could ask a question of.  The captain here was, I understood, engaged in a most momentous conversation with the king or the governor of this place.”

He addressed Lingard, directly.  “May I ask whether you have reached any conclusion as yet?  That Moor is a very dilatory person, I believe.”

“Any direct attack he would, of course, resist,” said Lingard.  “And, so far, you are protected.  But I must admit that he is rather angry with me.  He’s tired of the whole business.  He loves peace above anything in the world.  But I haven’t finished with him yet.”

“As far as I understood from what you told me before,” said Mr. d’Alcacer, with a quick side glance at Mrs. Travers’ uncovered and attentive eyes, “as far as I can see he may get all the peace he wants at once by driving us two, I mean Mr. Travers and myself, out of the gate on to the spears of those other enraged barbarians.  And there are some of his counsellors who advise him to do that very thing no later than the break of day I understand.”

Lingard stood for a moment perfectly motionless.

“That’s about it,” he said in an unemotional tone, and went away with a heavy step without giving another look at d’Alcacer and Mrs. Travers, who after a moment faced each other.

“You have heard?” said d’Alcacer.  “Of course that doesn’t affect your fate in any way, and as to him he is much too prestigious to be killed light-heartedly.  When all this is over you will walk triumphantly on his arm out of this stockade; for there is nothing in all this to affect his greatness, his absolute value in the eyes of those people—­and indeed in any other eyes.”  D’Alcacer kept his glance averted from Mrs. Travers and as soon as he had finished speaking busied himself in dragging the bench a little way further from the fire.  When they sat down on it he kept his distance from Mrs. Travers.  She made no sign of unveiling herself and her eyes without a face seemed to him strangely unknown and disquieting.

“The situation in a nutshell,” she said.  “You have arranged it all beautifully, even to my triumphal exit.  Well, and what then?  No, you needn’t answer, it has no interest.  I assure you I came here not with any notion of marching out in triumph, as you call it.  I came here, to speak in the most vulgar way, to save your skin—­and mine.”

Her voice came muffled to d’Alcacer’s ears with a changed character, even to the very intonation.  Above the white and embroidered scarf her eyes in the firelight transfixed him, black and so steady that even the red sparks of the reflected glare did not move in them.  He concealed the strong impression she made.  He bowed his head a little.