Authors: Joseph Conrad
Perhaps at first sight, sending that woman to Lingard was not the best
way toward that end. Jorgenson, however, had a distinct impression in
which his morning talk with Mrs. Travers had only confirmed him, that
those two had quarrelled for good. As, indeed, was unavoidable. What did
Tom Lingard want with any woman? The only woman in Jorgenson's life had
come in by way of exchange for a lot of cotton stuffs and several
brass guns. This fact could not but affect Jorgenson's judgment since
obviously in this case such a transaction was impossible. Therefore
the case was not serious. It didn't exist. What did exist was Lingard's
relation to the Wajo exiles, a great and warlike adventure such as no
rover in those seas had ever attempted.
That Tengga was much more ready to negotiate than to fight, the old
adventurer had not the slightest doubt. How Lingard would deal with him
was not a concern of Jorgenson's. That would be easy enough. Nothing
prevented Lingard from going to see Tengga and talking to him with
authority. All that ambitious person really wanted was to have a share
in Lingard's wealth, in Lingard's power, in Lingard's friendship. A year
before Tengga had once insinuated to Jorgenson, "In what way am I less
worthy of being a friend than Belarab?"
It was a distinct overture, a disclosure of the man's innermost mind.
Jorgenson, of course, had met it with a profound silence. His task was
not diplomacy but the care of stores.
After the effort of connected mental processes in order to bring about
Mrs. Travers' departure he was anxious to dismiss the whole matter from
his mind. The last thought he gave to it was severely practical. It
occurred to him that it would be advisable to attract in some way or
other Lingard's attention to the lagoon. In the language of the sea
a single rocket is properly a signal of distress, but, in the
circumstances, a group of three sent up simultaneously would convey a
warning. He gave his orders and watched the rockets go up finely with a
trail of red sparks, a bursting of white stars high up in the air, and
three loud reports in quick succession. Then he resumed his pacing of
the whole length of the hulk, confident that after this Tom would guess
that something was up and set a close watch over the lagoon. No doubt
these mysterious rockets would have a disturbing effect on Tengga and
his friends and cause a great excitement in the Settlement; but for that
Jorgenson did not care. The Settlement was already in such a turmoil
that a little more excitement did not matter. What Jorgenson did not
expect, however, was the sound of a musket-shot fired from the jungle
facing the bows of the Emma. It caused him to stop dead short. He had
heard distinctly the bullet strike the curve of the bow forward. "Some
hot-headed ass fired that," he said to himself, contemptuously. It
simply disclosed to him the fact that he was already besieged on the
shore side and set at rest his doubts as to the length Tengga was
prepared to go. Any length! Of course there was still time for Tom to
put everything right with six words, unless . . . Jorgenson smiled,
grimly, in the dark and resumed his tireless pacing.
What amused him was to observe the fire which had been burning night
and day before Tengga's residence suddenly extinguished. He pictured
to himself the wild rush with bamboo buckets to the lagoon shore, the
confusion, the hurry and jostling in a great hissing of water midst
clouds of steam. The image of the fat Tengga's consternation appealed to
Jorgenson's sense of humour for about five seconds. Then he took up the
binoculars from the roof of the deckhouse.
The bursting of the three white stars over the lagoon had given him
a momentary glimpse of the black speck of the canoe taking over Mrs.
Travers. He couldn't find it again with the glass, it was too dark; but
the part of the shore for which it was steered would be somewhere near
the angle of Belarab's stockade nearest to the beach. This Jorgenson
could make out in the faint rosy glare of fires burning inside.
Jorgenson was certain that Lingard was looking toward the Emma through
the most convenient loophole he could find.
As obviously Mrs. Travers could not have paddled herself across, two men
were taking her over; and for the steersman she had Jaffir. Though he
had assented to Jorgenson's plan Jaffir was anxious to accompany the
ring as near as possible to its destination. Nothing but dire necessity
had induced him to part with the talisman. Crouching in the stern and
flourishing his paddle from side to side he glared at the back of the
canvas deck-chair which had been placed in the middle for Mrs. Travers.
Wrapped up in the darkness she reclined in it with her eyes closed,
faintly aware of the ring hung low on her breast. As the canoe was
rather large it was moving very slowly. The two men dipped their paddles
without a splash: and surrendering herself passively, in a temporary
relaxation of all her limbs, to this adventure Mrs. Travers had no sense
of motion at all. She, too, like Jorgenson, was tired of thinking. She
abandoned herself to the silence of that night full of roused passions
and deadly purposes. She abandoned herself to an illusory feeling; to
the impression that she was really resting. For the first time in many
days she could taste the relief of being alone. The men with her were
less than nothing. She could not speak to them; she could not understand
them; the canoe might have been moving by enchantment—if it did move
at all. Like a half-conscious sleeper she was on the verge of saying to
herself, "What a strange dream I am having."
The low tones of Jaffir's voice stole into it quietly telling the men to
cease paddling, and the long canoe came to a rest slowly, no more than
ten yards from the beach. The party had been provided with a torch which
was to be lighted before the canoe touched the shore, thus giving a
character of openness to this desperate expedition. "And if it draws
fire on us," Jaffir had commented to Jorgenson, "well, then, we shall
see whose fate it is to die on this night."
"Yes," had muttered Jorgenson. "We shall see."
Jorgenson saw at last the small light of the torch against the blackness
of the stockade. He strained his hearing for a possible volley of
musketry fire but no sound came to him over the broad surface of the
lagoon. Over there the man with the torch, the other paddler, and Jaffir
himself impelling with a gentle motion of his paddle the canoe toward
the shore, had the glistening eyeballs and the tense faces of silent
excitement. The ruddy glare smote Mrs. Travers' closed eyelids but she
didn't open her eyes till she felt the canoe touch the strand. The two
men leaped instantly out of it. Mrs. Travers rose, abruptly. Nobody made
a sound. She stumbled out of the canoe on to the beach and almost before
she had recovered her balance the torch was thrust into her hand.
The heat, the nearness of the blaze confused and blinded her till,
instinctively, she raised the torch high above her head. For a moment
she stood still, holding aloft the fierce flame from which a few sparks
were falling slowly.
A naked bronze arm lighted from above pointed out the direction and Mrs.
Travers began to walk toward the featureless black mass of the stockade.
When after a few steps she looked back over her shoulder, the lagoon,
the beach, the canoe, the men she had just left had become already
invisible. She was alone bearing up a blazing torch on an earth that was
a dumb shadow shifting under her feet. At last she reached firmer ground
and the dark length of the palisade untouched as yet by the light of the
torch seemed to her immense, intimidating. She felt ready to drop from
sheer emotion. But she moved on.
"A little more to the left," shouted a strong voice.
It vibrated through all her fibres, rousing like the call of a trumpet,
went far beyond her, filled all the space. Mrs. Travers stood still for
a moment, then casting far away from her the burning torch ran forward
blindly with her hands extended toward the great sound of Lingard's
voice, leaving behind her the light flaring and spluttering on the
ground. She stumbled and was only saved from a fall by her hands coming
in contact with the rough stakes. The stockade rose high above her
head and she clung to it with widely open arms, pressing her whole body
against the rugged surface of that enormous and unscalable palisade. She
heard through it low voices inside, heavy thuds; and felt at every blow
a slight vibration of the ground under her feet. She glanced fearfully
over her shoulder and saw nothing in the darkness but the expiring glow
of the torch she had thrown away and the sombre shimmer of the lagoon
bordering the opaque darkness of the shore. Her strained eyeballs seemed
to detect mysterious movements in the darkness and she gave way to
irresistible terror, to a shrinking agony of apprehension. Was she to be
transfixed by a broad blade, to the high, immovable wall of wood against
which she was flattening herself desperately, as though she could hope
to penetrate it by the mere force of her fear? She had no idea where
she was, but as a matter of fact she was a little to the left of the
principal gate and almost exactly under one of the loopholes of the
stockade. Her excessive anguish passed into insensibility. She ceased to
hear, to see, and even to feel the contact of the surface to which
she clung. Lingard's voice somewhere from the sky above her head was
directing her, distinct, very close, full of concern.
"You must stoop low. Lower yet."
The stagnant blood of her body began to pulsate languidly. She stooped
low—lower yet—so low that she had to sink on her knees, and then
became aware of a faint smell of wood smoke mingled with the confused
murmur of agitated voices. This came to her through an opening no higher
than her head in her kneeling posture, and no wider than the breadth of
two stakes. Lingard was saying in a tone of distress:
"I couldn't get any of them to unbar the gate."
She was unable to make a sound.—"Are you there?" Lingard asked,
anxiously, so close to her now that she seemed to feel the very breath
of his words on her face. It revived her completely; she understood what
she had to do. She put her head and shoulders through the opening, was
at once seized under the arms by an eager grip and felt herself pulled
through with an irresistible force and with such haste that her scarf
was dragged off her head, its fringes having caught in the rough timber.
The same eager grip lifted her up, stood her on her feet without her
having to make any exertion toward that end. She became aware that
Lingard was trying to say something, but she heard only a confused
stammering expressive of wonder and delight in which she caught the
words "You . . . you . . ." deliriously repeated. He didn't release his
hold of her; his helpful and irresistible grip had changed into a close
clasp, a crushing embrace, the violent taking possession by an embodied
force that had broken loose and was not to be controlled any longer.
As his great voice had done a moment before, his great strength,
too, seemed able to fill all space in its enveloping and undeniable
authority. Every time she tried instinctively to stiffen herself against
its might, it reacted, affirming its fierce will, its uplifting power.
Several times she lost the feeling of the ground and had a sensation of
helplessness without fear, of triumph without exultation. The inevitable
had come to pass. She had foreseen it—and all the time in that dark
place and against the red glow of camp fires within the stockade the
man in whose arms she struggled remained shadowy to her eyes—to her
half-closed eyes. She thought suddenly, "He will crush me to death
without knowing it."
He was like a blind force. She closed her eyes altogether. Her head fell
back a little. Not instinctively but with wilful resignation and as
it were from a sense of justice she abandoned herself to his arms. The
effect was as though she had suddenly stabbed him to the heart. He let
her go so suddenly and completely that she would have fallen down in
a heap if she had not managed to catch hold of his forearm. He seemed
prepared for it and for a moment all her weight hung on it without
moving its rigidity by a hair's breadth. Behind her Mrs. Travers heard
the heavy thud of blows on wood, the confused murmurs and movements of
men.
A voice said suddenly, "It's done," with such emphasis that though,
of course, she didn't understand the words it helped her to regain
possession of herself; and when Lingard asked her very little above a
whisper: "Why don't you say something?" she answered readily, "Let me
get my breath first."
Round them all sounds had ceased. The men had secured again the
opening through which those arms had snatched her into a moment of
self-forgetfulness which had left her out of breath but uncrushed. As
if something imperative had been satisfied she had a moment of inward
serenity, a period of peace without thought while, holding to that arm
that trembled no more than an arm of iron, she felt stealthily over the
ground for one of the sandals which she had lost. Oh, yes, there was no
doubt of it, she had been carried off the earth, without shame, without
regret. But she would not have let him know of that dropped sandal for
anything in the world. That lost sandal was as symbolic as a dropped
veil. But he did not know of it. He must never know. Where was that
thing? She felt sure that they had not moved an inch from that spot.
Presently her foot found it and still gripping Lingard's forearm she
stooped to secure it properly. When she stood up, still holding his arm,
they confronted each other, he rigid in an effort of self-command but
feeling as if the surges of the heaviest sea that he could remember in
his life were running through his heart; and the woman as if emptied
of all feeling by her experience, without thought yet, but beginning to
regain her sense of the situation and the memory of the immediate past.