VII
The faint murmur of the words spoken on that night lingered for a longtime in Lingard's ears, more persistent than the memory of an uproar; helooked with a fixed gaze at the stars burning peacefully in the squareof the doorway, while after listening in silence to all he had to say,Belarab, as if seduced by the strength and audacity of the white man,opened his heart without reserve. He talked of his youth surrounded bythe fury of fanaticism and war, of battles on the hills, ofadvances through the forests, of men's unswerving piety, of theirunextinguishable hate. Not a single wandering cloud obscured the gentlesplendour of the rectangular patch of starlight framed in the opaqueblackness of the hut. Belarab murmured on of a succession of reverses,of the ring of disasters narrowing round men's fading hopes andundiminished courage. He whispered of defeat and flight, of the daysof despair, of the nights without sleep, of unending pursuit, of thebewildered horror and sombre fury, of their women and children killed inthe stockade before the besieged sallied forth to die.
"I have seen all this before I was in years a man," he cried, low.
His voice vibrated. In the pause that succeeded they heard a light sighof the sleeping follower who, clasping his legs above his ankles, restedhis forehead on his knees.
"And there was amongst us," began Belarab again, "one white man whoremained to the end, who was faithful with his strength, with hiscourage, with his wisdom. A great man. He had great riches but a greaterheart."
The memory of Jorgenson, emaciated and grey-haired, and trying to borrowfive dollars to get something to eat for the girl, passed before Lingardsuddenly upon the pacific glitter of the stars.
"He resembled you," pursued Belarab, abruptly. "We escaped with him, andin his ship came here. It was a solitude. The forest came near to thesheet of water, the rank grass waved upon the heads of tall men. Telal,my father, died of weariness; we were only a few, and we all nearly diedof trouble and sadness--here. On this spot! And no enemies could tellwhere we had gone. It was the Shore of Refuge--and starvation."
He droned on in the night, with rising and falling inflections. He toldhow his desperate companions wanted to go out and die fighting on thesea against the ships from the west, the ships with high sides and whitesails; and how, unflinching and alone, he kept them battling with thethorny bush, with the rank grass, with the soaring and enormous trees.Lingard, leaning on his elbow and staring through the door, recalledthe image of the wide fields outside, sleeping now, in an immensity ofserenity and starlight. This quiet and almost invisible talker had doneit all; in him was the origin, the creation, the fate; and in thewonder of that thought the shadowy murmuring figure acquired a giganticgreatness of significance, as if it had been the embodiment of somenatural force, of a force forever masterful and undying.
"And even now my life is unsafe as if I were their enemy," said Belarab,mournfully. "Eyes do not kill, nor angry words; and curses have nopower, else the Dutch would not grow fat living on our land, and I wouldnot be alive to-night. Do you understand? Have you seen the men whofought in the old days? They have not forgotten the times of war. I havegiven them homes and quiet hearts and full bellies. I alone. And theycurse my name in the dark, in each other's ears--because they can neverforget."
This man, whose talk had been of war and violence, discoveredunexpectedly a passionate craving for security and peace. No one wouldunderstand him. Some of those who would not understand had died. Hiswhite teeth gleamed cruelly in the dark. But there were others he couldnot kill. The fools. He wanted the land and the people in it to beforgotten as if they had been swallowed by the sea. But they had neitherwisdom nor patience. Could they not wait? They chanted prayers fivetimes every day, but they had not the faith.
"Death comes to all--and to the believers the end of trouble. But youwhite men who are too strong for us, you also die. You die. And thereis a Paradise as great as all earth and all Heaven together, but not foryou--not for you!"
Lingard, amazed, listened without a sound. The sleeper snored faintly.Belarab continued very calm after this almost involuntary outburst ofa consoling belief. He explained that he wanted somebody at his back,somebody strong and whom he could trust, some outside force that wouldawe the unruly, that would inspire their ignorance with fear, and makehis rule secure. He groped in the dark and seizing Lingard's arm abovethe elbow pressed it with force--then let go. And Lingard understood whyhis temerity had been so successful.
Then and there, in return for Lingard's open support, a few guns and alittle money, Belarab promised his help for the conquest of Wajo. Therewas no doubt he could find men who would fight. He could send messagesto friends at a distance and there were also many unquiet spirits in hisown district ready for any adventure. He spoke of these men withfierce contempt and an angry tenderness, in mingled accents of envy anddisdain. He was wearied by their folly, by their recklessness, by theirimpatience--and he seemed to resent these as if they had been gifts ofwhich he himself had been deprived by the fatality of his wisdom. Theywould fight. When the time came Lingard had only to speak, and a signfrom him would send them to a vain death--those men who could not waitfor an opportunity on this earth or for the eternal revenge of Heaven.
He ceased, and towered upright in the gloom.
"Awake!" he exclaimed, low, bending over the sleeping man.
Their black shapes, passing in turn, eclipsed for two successive momentsthe glitter of the stars, and Lingard, who had not stirred, remainedalone. He lay back full length with an arm thrown across his eyes.
When three days afterward he left Belarab's settlement, it was on a calmmorning of unclouded peace. All the boats of the brig came up into thelagoon armed and manned to make more impressive the solemn fact of aconcluded alliance. A staring crowd watched his imposing departure inprofound silence and with an increased sense of wonder at the mystery ofhis apparition. The progress of the boats was smooth and slow while theycrossed the wide lagoon. Lingard looked back once. A great stillness hadlaid its hand over the earth, the sky, and the men; upon the immobilityof landscape and people. Hassim and Immada, standing out clearly bythe side of the chief, raised their arms in a last salutation; and thedistant gesture appeared sad, futile, lost in space, like a sign ofdistress made by castaways in the vain hope of an impossible help.
He departed, he returned, he went away again, and each time those twofigures, lonely on some sandbank of the Shallows, made at him the samefutile sign of greeting or good-bye. Their arms at each movement seemedto draw closer around his heart the bonds of a protecting affection.He worked prosaically, earning money to pay the cost of the romanticnecessity that had invaded his life. And the money ran like water out ofhis hands. The owner of the New England voice remitted not a little ofit to his people in Baltimore. But import houses in the ports of theFar East had their share. It paid for a fast prau which, commanded byJaffir, sailed into unfrequented bays and up unexplored rivers, carryingsecret messages, important news, generous bribes. A good part of it wentto the purchase of the Emma.
The Emma was a battered and decrepit old schooner that, in the declineof her existence, had been much ill-used by a paunchy white trader ofcunning and gluttonous aspect. This man boasted outrageously afterwardof the good price he had got "for that rotten old hooker of mine--youknow." The Emma left port mysteriously in company with the brig andhenceforth vanished from the seas forever. Lingard had her towed up thecreek and ran her aground upon that shore of the lagoon farthest fromBelarab's settlement. There had been at that time a great rise ofwaters, which retiring soon after left the old craft cradled in the mud,with her bows grounded high between the trunks of two big trees, andleaning over a little as though after a hard life she had settledwearily to an everlasting rest. There, a few months later, Jorgensonfound her when, called back into the life of men, he reappeared,together with Lingard, in the Land of Refuge.
"She is better than a fort on shore," said Lingard, as side by side theyleant over the taffrail, looking across the lagoon on the houses andpalm groves of the settle
ment. "All the guns and powder I have gottogether so far are stored in her. Good idea, wasn't it? There willbe, perhaps, no other such flood for years, and now they can't comealongside unless right under the counter, and only one boat at a time.I think you are perfectly safe here; you could keep off a whole fleet ofboats; she isn't easy to set fire to; the forest in front is better thana wall. Well?"
Jorgenson assented in grunts. He looked at the desolate emptiness of thedecks, at the stripped spars, at the dead body of the dismantled littlevessel that would know the life of the seas no more. The gloom of theforest fell on her, mournful like a winding sheet. The bushes of thebank tapped their twigs on the bluff of her bows, and a pendent spike oftiny brown blossoms swung to and fro over the ruins of her windlass.
Hassim's companions garrisoned the old hulk, and Jorgenson, leftin charge, prowled about from stem to stern, taciturn and anxiouslyfaithful to his trust. He had been received with astonishment,respect--and awe. Belarab visited him often. Sometimes those whom he hadknown in their prime years ago, during a struggle for faith and life,would come to talk with the white man. Their voices were like the echoesof stirring events, in the pale glamour of a youth gone by. They noddedtheir old heads. Do you remember?--they said. He remembered only toowell! He was like a man raised from the dead, for whom the fascinatingtrust in the power of life is tainted by the black scepticism of thegrave.
Only at times the invincible belief in the reality of existence wouldcome back, insidious and inspiring. He squared his shoulders, heldhimself straight, and walked with a firmer step. He felt a glow withinhim and the quickened beat of his heart. Then he calculated in silentexcitement Lingard's chances of success, and he lived for a time withthe life of that other man who knew nothing of the black scepticism ofthe grave. The chances were good, very good.
"I should like to see it through," Jorgenson muttered to himselfardently; and his lustreless eyes would flash for a moment.
The Rescue: A Romance of the Shallows Page 12
