Jorgenson kept silent as if waiting for a supreme inspiration and suddenly he spoke in his other-world voice:  “Tell Tengga from me that as long as he brings with him Rajah Hassim and the Rajah’s sister, he and his chief men will be welcome on deck here, no matter how many boats come along with them.  For that I do not care.  You may go now.”

A profound silence succeeded.  It was clear that the envoy was gone, keeping in the shadow of the shore.  Jorgenson turned to Jaffir.

“Death amongst friends is but a festival,” he quoted, mumbling in his moustache.

“It is, by Allah,” assented Jaffir with sombre fervour.

VI

Thirty-six hours later Carter, alone with Lingard in the cabin of the brig, could almost feel during a pause in his talk the oppressive, the breathless peace of the Shallows awaiting another sunset.

“I never expected to see any of you alive,” Carter began in his easy tone, but with much less carelessness in his bearing as though his days of responsibility amongst the Shoals of the Shore of Refuge had matured his view of the external world and of his own place therein.

“Of course not,” muttered Lingard.

The listlessness of that man whom he had always seen acting under the stress of a secret passion seemed perfectly appalling to Carter’s youthful and deliberate energy.  Ever since he had found himself again face to face with Lingard he had tried to conceal the shocking impression with a delicacy which owed nothing to training but was as intuitive as a child’s.

While justifying to Lingard his manner of dealing with the situation on the Shore of Refuge, he could not for the life of him help asking himself what was this new mystery.  He was also young enough to long for a word of commendation.

“Come, Captain,” he argued; “how would you have liked to come out and find nothing but two half-burnt wrecks stuck on the sands—­perhaps?”

He waited for a moment, then in sheer compassion turned away his eyes from that fixed gaze, from that harassed face with sunk cheeks, from that figure of indomitable strength robbed of its fire.  He said to himself:  “He doesn’t hear me,” and raised his voice without altering its self-contained tone: 

“I was below yesterday morning when we felt the shock, but the noise came to us only as a deep rumble.  I made one jump for the companion but that precious Shaw was before me yelling, ‘Earthquake!  Earthquake!’ and I am hanged if he didn’t miss his footing and land down on his head at the bottom of the stairs.  I had to stop to pick him up but I got on deck in time to see a mighty black cloud that seemed almost solid pop up from behind the forest like a balloon.  It stayed there for quite a long time.  Some of our Calashes on deck swore to me that they had seen a red flash above the tree-tops.  But that’s hard to believe.  I guessed at once that something had blown up on shore.  My first thought was that I would never see you any more and I made up my mind at once to find out all the truth you have been keeping away from me.  No, sir!  Don’t you make a mistake!  I wasn’t going to give you up, dead or alive.”