Belarab was not only awake, but he even looked like a man who had not slept for a long time.  The creator of the Shore of Refuge, the weary Ruler of the Settlement, with his scorn of the unrest and folly of men, was angry with his white friend who was always bringing his desires and his troubles to his very door.  Belarab did not want any one to die but neither did he want any one in particular to live.  What he was concerned about was to preserve the mystery and the power of his melancholy hesitations.  These delicate things were menaced by Lingard’s brusque movements, by that passionate white man who believed in more than one God and always seemed to doubt the power of Destiny.  Belarab was profoundly annoyed.  He was also genuinely concerned, for he liked Lingard.  He liked him not only for his strength, which protected his clear-minded scepticism from those dangers that beset all rulers, but he liked him also for himself.  That man of infinite hesitations, born from a sort of mystic contempt for Allah’s creation, yet believed absolutely both in Lingard’s power and in his boldness.  Absolutely.  And yet, in the marvellous consistency of his temperament, now that the moment had come, he dreaded to put both power and fortitude to the test.

Lingard could not know that some little time before the first break of dawn one of Belarab’s spies in the Settlement had found his way inside the stockade at a spot remote from the lagoon, and that a very few moments after Lingard had left the Chief in consequence of Jorgenson’s rockets, Belarab was listening to an amazing tale of Hassim and Immada’s capture and of Tengga’s determination, very much strengthened by that fact, to obtain possession of the Emma, either by force or by negotiation, or by some crafty subterfuge in which the Rajah and his sister could be made to play their part.  In his mistrust of the universe, which seemed almost to extend to the will of God himself, Belarab was very much alarmed, for the material power of Daman’s piratical crowd was at Tengga’s command; and who could tell whether this Wajo Rajah would remain loyal in the circumstances?  It was also very characteristic of him whom the original settlers of the Shore of Refuge called the Father of Safety, that he did not say anything of this to Lingard, for he was afraid of rousing Lingard’s fierce energy which would even carry away himself and all his people and put the peace of so many years to the sudden hazard of a battle.

Therefore Belarab set himself to persuade Lingard on general considerations to deliver the white men, who really belonged to Daman, to that supreme Chief of the Illanuns and by this simple proceeding detach him completely from Tengga.  Why should he, Belarab, go to war against half the Settlement on their account?  It was not necessary, it was not reasonable.  It would be even in a manner a sin to begin a strife in a community of True Believers.  Whereas with an offer like that in his hand he could send an embassy