“It was not meant for us,” said Lingard in an unexpectedly savage tone.  “Here, Shaw, make them put a blank charge into that forecastle gun.  Tell ’em to ram hard the wadding and grease the mouth.  We want to make a good noise.  If old Jorgenson hears it, that fire will be out before you have time to turn round twice. . . .  In a minute, Mr. Carter.”

The yacht’s boat had come alongside as soon as the brig had been brought up, and Carter had been waiting to take Lingard on board the yacht.  They both walked now to the gangway.  Shaw, following his commander, stood by to take his last orders.

“Put all the boats in the water, Mr. Shaw,” Lingard was saying, with one foot on the rail, ready to leave his ship, “and mount the four-pounder swivel in the longboat’s bow.  Cast off the sea lashings of the guns, but don’t run ’em out yet.  Keep the topsails loose and the jib ready for setting, I may want the sails in a hurry.  Now, Mr. Carter, I am ready for you.”

“Shove off, boys,” said Carter as soon as they were seated in the boat.  “Shove off, and give way for a last pull before you get a long rest.”

The men lay back on their oars, grunting.  Their faces were drawn, grey and streaked with the dried salt sprays.  They had the worried expression of men who had a long call made upon their endurance.  Carter, heavy-eyed and dull, steered for the yacht’s gangway.  Lingard asked as they were crossing the brig’s bows: 

“Water enough alongside your craft, I suppose?”

“Yes.  Eight to twelve feet,” answered Carter, hoarsely.  “Say, Captain!  Where’s your show of cutthroats?  Why!  This sea is as empty as a church on a week-day.”

The booming report, nearly over his head, of the brig’s eighteen-pounder interrupted him.  A round puff of white vapour, spreading itself lazily, clung in fading shreds about the foreyard.  Lingard, turning half round in the stern sheets, looked at the smoke on the shore.  Carter remained silent, staring sleepily at the yacht they were approaching.  Lingard kept watching the smoke so intensely that he almost forgot where he was, till Carter’s voice pronouncing sharply at his ear the words “way enough,” recalled him to himself.

They were in the shadow of the yacht and coming alongside her ladder.  The master of the brig looked upward into the face of a gentleman, with long whiskers and a shaved chin, staring down at him over the side through a single eyeglass.  As he put his foot on the bottom step he could see the shore smoke still ascending, unceasing and thick; but even as he looked the very base of the black pillar rose above the ragged line of tree-tops.  The whole thing floated clear away from the earth, and rolling itself into an irregularly shaped mass, drifted out to seaward, travelling slowly over the blue heavens, like a threatening and lonely cloud.

PART II.  THE SHORE OF REFUGE