VI
For two years, Lingard, who had thrown himself body and soul into thegreat enterprise, had lived in the long intoxication of slowly preparingsuccess. No thought of failure had crossed his mind, and no priceappeared too heavy to pay for such a magnificent achievement. It wasnothing less than bringing Hassim triumphantly back to that countryseen once at night under the low clouds and in the incessant tumult ofthunder. When at the conclusion of some long talk with Hassim, who forthe twentieth time perhaps had related the story of his wrongs and hisstruggle, he lifted his big arm and shaking his fist above his head,shouted: "We will stir them up. We will wake up the country!" he was,without knowing it in the least, making a complete confession of theidealism hidden under the simplicity of his strength. He would wake upthe country! That was the fundamental and unconscious emotion on whichwere engrafted his need of action, the primitive sense of what was dueto justice, to gratitude, to friendship, the sentimental pity for thehard lot of Immada--poor child--the proud conviction that of all themen in the world, in his world, he alone had the means and the pluck "tolift up the big end" of such an adventure.
Money was wanted and men were wanted, and he had obtained enough of bothin two years from that day when, pistols in his belt and a cabbage-leafhat on head, he had unexpectedly, and at early dawn, confronted inperfect silence that mysterious Belarab, who himself was for a momenttoo astounded for speech at the sight of a white face.
The sun had not yet cleared the forests of the interior, but a skyalready full of light arched over a dark oval lagoon, over wide fieldsas yet full of shadows, that seemed slowly changing into the whitenessof the morning mist. There were huts, fences, palisades, big housesthat, erected on lofty piles, were seen above the tops of clusteredfruit trees, as if suspended in the air.
Such was the aspect of Belarab's settlement when Lingard set his eyeson it for the first time. There were all these things, a great numberof faces at the back of the spare and muffled-up figure confronting him,and in the swiftly increasing light a complete stillness that made themurmur of the word "Marhaba" (welcome), pronounced at last by the chief,perfectly audible to every one of his followers. The bodyguards whostood about him in black skull-caps and with long-shafted lances,preserved an impassive aspect. Across open spaces men could be seenrunning to the waterside. A group of women standing on a low knoll gazedintently, and nothing of them but the heads showed above the unstirringstalks of a maize field. Suddenly within a cluster of empty huts nearby the voice of an invisible hag was heard scolding with shrill fury aninvisible young girl:
"Strangers! You want to see the strangers? O devoid of all decency!Must I so lame and old husk the rice alone? May evil befall thee and thestrangers! May they never find favour! May they be pursued with swords!I am old. I am old. There is no good in strangers! O girl! May theyburn."
"Welcome," repeated Belarab, gravely, and looking straight intoLingard's eyes.
Lingard spent six days that time in Belarab's settlement. Of these,three were passed in observing each other without a question being askedor a hint given as to the object in view. Lingard lounged on the finemats with which the chief had furnished a small bamboo house outside afortified enclosure, where a white flag with a green border fluttered ona high and slender pole but still below the walls of long, high-roofedbuildings, raised forty feet or more on hard-wood posts.
Far away the inland forests were tinted a shimmering blue, like theforests of a dream. On the seaward side the belt of great trunks andmatted undergrowth came to the western shore of the oval lagoon; and inthe pure freshness of the air the groups of brown houses reflected inthe water or seen above the waving green of the fields, the clumps ofpalm trees, the fenced-in plantations, the groves of fruit trees, madeup a picture of sumptuous prosperity.
Above the buildings, the men, the women, the still sheet of water andthe great plain of crops glistening with dew, stretched the exalted,the miraculous peace of a cloudless sky. And no road seemed to leadinto this country of splendour and stillness. One could not believe theunquiet sea was so near, with its gifts and its unending menace. Evenduring the months of storms, the great clamour rising from the whitenedexpanse of the Shallows dwelt high in the air in a vast murmur, nowfeeble now stronger, that seemed to swing back and forth on the windabove the earth without any one being able to tell whence it came. Itwas like the solemn chant of a waterfall swelling and dying away abovethe woods, the fields, above the roofs of houses and the heads of men,above the secret peace of that hidden and flourishing settlement ofvanquished fanatics, fugitives, and outcasts.
Every afternoon Belarab, followed by an escort that stopped outsidethe door, entered alone the house of his guest. He gave the salutation,inquired after his health, conversed about insignificant things with aninscrutable mien. But all the time the steadfast gaze of his thoughtfuleyes seemed to seek the truth within that white face. In the cool ofthe evening, before the sun had set, they talked together, passing andrepassing between the rugged pillars of the grove near the gate of thestockade. The escort away in the oblique sunlight, followed with theireyes the strolling figures appearing and vanishing behind the trees.Many words were pronounced, but nothing was said that would disclosethe thoughts of the two men. They clasped hands demonstratively beforeseparating, and the heavy slam of the gate was followed by the triplethud of the wooden bars dropped into iron clamps.
On the third night, Lingard was awakened from a light sleep by the soundof whispering outside. A black shadow obscured the stars in the doorway,and a man entering suddenly, stood above his couch while another couldbe seen squatting--a dark lump on the threshold of the hut.
"Fear not. I am Belarab," said a cautious voice.
"I was not afraid," whispered Lingard. "It is the man coming in the darkand without warning who is in danger."
"And did you not come to me without warning? I said 'welcome'--it was aseasy for me to say 'kill him.'"
"You were within reach of my arm. We would have died together," retortedLingard, quietly.
The other clicked his tongue twice, and his indistinct shape seemed tosink half-way through the floor.
"It was not written thus before we were born," he said, sittingcross-legged near the mats, and in a deadened voice. "Therefore you aremy guest. Let the talk between us be straight like the shaft of a spearand shorter than the remainder of this night. What do you want?"
"First, your long life," answered Lingard, leaning forward toward thegleam of a pair of eyes, "and then--your help."
The Rescue: A Romance of the Shallows Page 11