He crossed over to the companion, then checking himself suddenly:  “Was there a boat from the yacht during the day?” he asked as if struck by a sudden thought.—­“No, sir,” answered Carter.  “We had no communication with the yacht to-day.”—­“Send Wasub to me,” repeated Lingard in a stern voice as he went down the stairs.

The old serang coming in noiselessly saw his Captain as he had seen him many times before, sitting under the gilt thunderbolts, apparently as strong in his body, in his wealth, and in his knowledge of secret words that have a power over men and elements, as ever.  The old Malay squatted down within a couple of feet from Lingard, leaned his back against the satinwood panel of the bulkhead, then raising his old eyes with a watchful and benevolent expression to the white man’s face, clasped his hands between his knees.

“Wasub, you have learned now everything.  Is there no one left alive but Jaffir?  Are they all dead?”

“May you live!” answered Wasub; and Lingard whispered an appalled “All dead!” to which Wasub nodded slightly twice.  His cracked voice had a lamenting intonation.  “It is all true!  It is all true!  You are left alone, Tuan; you are left alone!”

“It was their destiny,” said Lingard at last, with forced calmness.  “But has Jaffir told you of the manner of this calamity?  How is it that he alone came out alive from it to be found by you?”

“He was told by his lord to depart and he obeyed,” began Wasub, fixing his eyes on the deck and speaking just loud enough to be heard by Lingard, who, bending forward in his seat, shrank inwardly from every word and yet would not have missed a single one of them for anything.

For the catastrophe had fallen on his head like a bolt from the blue in the early morning hours of the day before.  At the first break of dawn he had been sent for to resume, his talk with Belarab.  He had felt suddenly Mrs. Travers remove her hand from his head.  Her voice speaking intimately into his ear:  “Get up.  There are some people coming,” had recalled him to himself.  He had got up from the ground.  The light was dim, the air full of mist; and it was only gradually that he began to make out forms above his head and about his feet:  trees, houses, men sleeping on the ground.  He didn’t recognize them.  It was but a cruel change of dream.  Who could tell what was real in this world?  He looked about him, dazedly; he was still drunk with the deep draught of oblivion he had conquered for himself.  Yes—­but it was she who had let him snatch the cup.  He looked down at the woman on the bench.  She moved not.  She had remained like that, still for hours, giving him a waking dream of rest without end, in an infinity of happiness without sound and movement, without thought, without joy; but with an infinite ease of content, like a world-embracing reverie breathing the air of sadness and scented with love.  For hours she had not moved.