"What? What do you in-si-nu-ate. My billet? You ain"t fit for it, you yacht-swabbing bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned imposter."
"What"s this? Any of our boats back?" asked Lingard from the p.o.o.p. "Let the seacannie in charge come to me at once."
"There"s only a message from the yacht," began Shaw, deliberately.
"Yacht! Get the deck lamps along here in the waist! See the ladder lowered. Bear a hand, serang! Mr. Shaw! Burn the flare up aft. Two of them! Give light to the yacht"s boats that will be coming alongside.
Steward! Where"s that steward? Turn him out then."
Bare feet began to patter all round Carter. Shadows glided swiftly.
"Are these flares coming? Where"s the quartermaster on duty?" shouted Lingard in English and Malay. "This way, come here! Put it on a rocket stick--can"t you? Hold over the side--thus! Stand by with the lines for the boats forward there. Mr. Shaw--we want more light!"
"Aye, aye, sir," called out Shaw, but he did not move, as if dazed by the vehemence of his commander.
"That"s what we want," muttered Carter under his breath. "Imposter! What do you call yourself?" he said half aloud to Shaw.
The ruddy glare of the flares disclosed Lingard from head to foot, standing at the break of the p.o.o.p. His head was bare, his face, crudely lighted, had a fierce and changing expression in the sway of flames.
"What can be his game?" thought Carter, impressed by the powerful and wild aspect of that figure. "He"s changed somehow since I saw him first," he reflected. It struck him the change was serious, not exactly for the worse, perhaps--and yet. . . . Lingard smiled at him from the p.o.o.p.
Carter went up the steps and without pausing informed him of what had happened.
"Mrs. Travers told me to go to you at once. She"s very upset as you may guess," he drawled, looking Lingard hard in the face. Lingard knitted his eyebrows. "The hands, too, are scared," Carter went on. "They fancy the savages, or whatever they may be who stole the owner, are going to board the yacht every minute. I don"t think so myself but--"
"Quite right--most unlikely," muttered Lingard.
"Aye, I daresay you know all about it," continued Carter, coolly, "the men are startled and no mistake, but I can"t blame them very much. There isn"t enough even of carving knives aboard to go round. One old signal gun! A poor show for better men than they."
"There"s no mistake I suppose about this affair?" asked Lingard.
"Well, unless the gentlemen are having a lark with us at hide and seek.
The man says he waited ten minutes at the point, then pulled slowly along the bank looking out, expecting to see them walking back. He made the trunk of a tree apparently stranded on the sand and as he was sculling past he says a man jumped up from behind that log, flung a stick at him and went off running. He backed water at once and began to shout, "Are you there, sir?" No one answered. He could hear the bushes rustle and some strange noises like whisperings. It was very dark. After calling out several times, and waiting on his oars, he got frightened and pulled back to the yacht. That is clear enough. The only doubt in my mind is if they are alive or not. I didn"t let on to Mrs. Travers.
That"s a kind of thing you keep to yourself, of course."
"I don"t think they are dead," said Lingard, slowly, and as if thinking of something else.
"Oh! If you say so it"s all right," said Carter with deliberation.
"What?" asked Lingard, absently; "fling a stick, did they? Fling a spear!"
"That"s it!" a.s.sented Carter, "but I didn"t say anything. I only wondered if the same kind of stick hadn"t been flung at the owner, that"s all. But I suppose you know your business best, Captain."
Lingard, grasping his whole beard, reflected profoundly, erect and with bowed head in the glare of the flares.
"I suppose you think it"s my doing?" he asked, sharply, without looking up.
Carter surveyed him with a candidly curious gaze. "Well, Captain, Mrs.
Travers did let on a bit to me about our chief-officer"s boat. You"ve stopped it, haven"t you? How she got to know G.o.d only knows. She was sorry she spoke, too, but it wasn"t so much of news to me as she thought. I can put two and two together, sometimes. Those rockets, last night, eh? I wished I had bitten my tongue out before I told you about our first gig. But I was taken unawares. Wasn"t I? I put it to you: wasn"t I? And so I told her when she asked me what pa.s.sed between you and me on board this brig, not twenty-four hours ago. Things look different now, all of a sudden. Enough to scare a woman, but she is the best man of them all on board. The others are fairly off the chump because it"s a bit dark and something has happened they ain"t used to.
But she has something on her mind. I can"t make her out!" He paused, wriggled his shoulders slightly--"No more than I can make you out," he added.
"That"s your trouble, is it?" said Lingard, slowly.
"Aye, Captain. Is it all clear to you? Stopping boats, kidnapping gentlemen. That"s fun in a way, only--I am a youngster to you--but is it all clear to you? Old Robinson wasn"t particular, you know, and he--"
"Clearer than daylight," cried Lingard, hotly. "I can"t give up--"
He checked himself. Carter waited. The flare bearers stood rigid, turning their faces away from the flame, and in the play of gleams at its foot the mast near by, like a lofty column, ascended in the great darkness. A lot of ropes ran up slanting into a dark void and were lost to sight, but high aloft a brace block gleamed white, the end of a yard-arm could be seen suspended in the air and as if glowing with its own light. The sky had clouded over the brig without a breath of wind.
"Give up," repeated Carter with an uneasy shuffle of feet.
"n.o.body," finished Lingard. "I can"t. It"s as clear as daylight. I can"t! No! Nothing!"
He stared straight out afar, and after looking at him Carter felt moved by a bit of youthful intuition to murmur, "That"s bad," in a tone that almost in spite of himself hinted at the dawning of a befogged compa.s.sion.
He had a sense of confusion within him, the sense of mystery without.
He had never experienced anything like it all the time when serving with old Robinson in the Ly-e-moon. And yet he had seen and taken part in some queer doings that were not clear to him at the time. They were secret but they suggested something comprehensible. This affair did not.
It had somehow a subtlety that affected him. He was uneasy as if there had been a breath of magic on events and men giving to this complication of a yachting voyage a significance impossible to perceive, but felt in the words, in the gestures, in the events, which made them all strangely, obscurely startling.
He was not one who could keep track of his sensations, and besides he had not the leisure. He had to answer Lingard"s questions about the people of the yacht. No, he couldn"t say Mrs. Travers was what you may call frightened. She seemed to have something in her mind. Oh, yes! The chaps were in a funk. Would they fight? Anybody would fight when driven to it, funk or no funk. That was his experience. Naturally one liked to have something better than a handspike to do it with. Still--In the pause Carter seemed to weigh with composure the chances of men with handspikes.
"What do you want to fight us for?" he asked, suddenly.
Lingard started.
"I don"t," he said; "I wouldn"t be asking you."
"There"s no saying what you would do, Captain," replied Carter; "it isn"t twenty-four hours since you wanted to shoot me."
"I only said I would, rather than let you go raising trouble for me,"
explained Lingard.
"One night isn"t like another," mumbled Carter, "but how am I to know?
It seems to me you are making trouble for yourself as fast as you can."
"Well, supposing I am," said Lingard with sudden gloominess. "Would your men fight if I armed them properly?"
"What--for you or for themselves?" asked Carter.
"For the woman," burst out Lingard. "You forget there"s a woman on board. I don"t care _that_ for their carcases."
Carter pondered conscientiously.
"Not to-night," he said at last. "There"s one or two good men amongst them, but the rest are struck all of a heap. Not to-night. Give them time to get steady a bit if you want them to fight."
He gave facts and opinions with a mixture of loyalty and mistrust. His own state puzzled him exceedingly. He couldn"t make out anything, he did not know what to believe and yet he had an impulsive desire, an inspired desire to help the man. At times it appeared a necessity--at others policy; between whiles a great folly, which perhaps did not matter because he suspected himself of being helpless anyway. Then he had moments of anger. In those moments he would feel in his pocket the b.u.t.t of a loaded pistol. He had provided himself with the weapon, when directed by Mrs. Travers to go on board the brig.
"If he wants to interfere with me, I"ll let drive at him and take my chance of getting away," he had explained hurriedly.