“Nothing!” said the man with a sigh, and as if awakening from a long period of musing.

He was clad in a jacket of coarse blue cotton, of the kind a poor fisherman might own, and he wore it wide open on a muscular chest the colour and smoothness of bronze.  From the twist of threadbare sarong wound tightly on the hips protruded outward to the left the ivory hilt, ringed with six bands of gold, of a weapon that would not have disgraced a ruler.  Silver glittered about the flintlock and the hardwood stock of his gun.  The red and gold handkerchief folded round his head was of costly stuff, such as is woven by high-born women in the households of chiefs, only the gold threads were tarnished and the silk frayed in the folds.  His head was thrown back, the dropped eyelids narrowed the gleam of his eyes.  His face was hairless, the nose short with mobile nostrils, and the smile of careless good-humour seemed to have been permanently wrought, as if with a delicate tool, into the slight hollows about the corners of rather full lips.  His upright figure had a negligent elegance.  But in the careless face, in the easy gestures of the whole man there was something attentive and restrained.

After giving the offing a last searching glance, he turned and, facing the rising sun, walked bare-footed on the elastic sand.  The trailed butt of his gun made a deep furrow.  The embers had ceased to smoulder.  He looked down at them pensively for a while, then called over his shoulder to the girl who had remained behind, still scanning the sea: 

“The fire is out, Immada.”

At the sound of his voice the girl moved toward the mats.  Her black hair hung like a mantle.  Her sarong, the kilt-like garment which both sexes wear, had the national check of grey and red, but she had not completed her attire by the belt, scarves, the loose upper wrappings, and the head-covering of a woman.  A black silk jacket, like that of a man of rank, was buttoned over her bust and fitted closely to her slender waist.  The edge of a stand-up collar, stiff with gold embroidery, rubbed her cheek.  She had no bracelets, no anklets, and although dressed practically in man’s clothes, had about her person no weapon of any sort.  Her arms hung down in exceedingly tight sleeves slit a little way up from the wrist, gold-braided and with a row of small gold buttons.  She walked, brown and alert, all of a piece, with short steps, the eyes lively in an impassive little face, the arched mouth closed firmly; and her whole person breathed in its rigid grace the fiery gravity of youth at the beginning of the task of life—­at the beginning of beliefs and hopes.

This was the day of Lingard’s arrival upon the coast, but, as is known, the brig, delayed by the calm, did not appear in sight of the shallows till the morning was far advanced.  Disappointed in their hope to see the expected sail shining in the first rays of the rising sun, the man and the woman, without attempting to relight the fire, lounged on their sleeping mats.  At their feet a common canoe, hauled out of the water, was, for more security, moored by a grass rope to the shaft of a long spear planted firmly on the white beach, and the incoming tide lapped monotonously against its stern.