A languid roll of the already glazed eyeballs, a mere stir of black and white in the gathering dusk showed that the faithful messenger of princes was aware of the presence of the man who had been so long known to him and his people as the King of the Sea.  Lingard knelt down close to Jaffir’s head, which rolled a little from side to side and then became still, staring at a beam of the upper deck.  Lingard bent his ear to the dark lips.  “Deliver your message” he said in a gentle tone.

“The Rajah wished to hold your hand once more,” whispered Jaffir so faintly that Lingard had to guess the words rather than hear them.  “I was to tell you,” he went on—­and stopped suddenly.

“What were you to tell me?”

“To forget everything,” said Jaffir with a loud effort as if beginning a long speech.  After that he said nothing more till Lingard murmured, “And the lady Immada?”

Jaffir collected all his strength.  “She hoped no more,” he uttered, distinctly.  “The order came to her while she mourned, veiled, apart.  I didn’t even see her face.”

Lingard swayed over the dying man so heavily that Wasub, standing near by, hastened to catch him by the shoulder.  Jaffir seemed unaware of anything, and went on staring at the beam.

“Can you hear me, O Jaffir?” asked Lingard.

“I hear.”

“I never had the ring.  Who could bring it to me?”

“We gave it to the white woman—­may Jehannum be her lot!”

“No!  It shall be my lot,” said Lingard with despairing force, while Wasub raised both his hands in dismay.  “For, listen, Jaffir, if she had given the ring to me it would have been to one that was dumb, deaf, and robbed of all courage.”

It was impossible to say whether Jaffir had heard.  He made no sound, there was no change in his awful stare, but his prone body moved under the cotton sheet as if to get further away from the white man.  Lingard got up slowly and making a sign to Wasub to remain where he was, went up on deck without giving another glance to the dying man.  Again it seemed to him that he was pacing the quarter-deck of a deserted ship.  The mulatto steward, watching through the crack of the pantry door, saw the Captain stagger into the cuddy and fling-to the door behind him with a crash.  For more than an hour nobody approached that closed door till Carter coming down the companion stairs spoke without attempting to open it.

“Are you there, sir?” The answer, “You may come in,” comforted the young man by its strong resonance.  He went in.

“Well?”

“Jaffir is dead.  This moment.  I thought you would want to know.”

Lingard looked persistently at Carter, thinking that now Jaffir was dead there was no one left on the empty earth to speak to him a word of reproach; no one to know the greatness of his intentions, the bond of fidelity between him and Hassim and Immada, the depth of his affection for those people, the earnestness of his visions, and the unbounded trust that was his reward.  By the mad scorn of Jorgenson flaming up against the life of men, all this was as if it had never been.  It had become a secret locked up in his own breast forever.