Complete Works

our work was done — and there was a feast ready for the fishes of the sea.”
    “Aye! aye!” muttered Lingard, nodding his head slowly. “I see. You should not let it get rusty like this,” he added.
    He let the gun fall between his knees, and moving back on his seat, leaned his head against the wall of the hut, crossing his arms on his breast.
    “A good gun,” went on Babalatchi. “Carry far and true. Better than this — there.”
    With the tips of his fingers he touched gently the butt of a revolver peeping out of the right pocket of Lingard’s white jacket.
    “Take your hand off that,” said Lingard sharply, but in a good-humoured tone and without making the slightest movement.
    Babalatchi smiled and hitched his seat a little further off.
    For some time they sat in silence. Lingard, with his head tilted back, looked downwards with lowered eyelids at Babalatchi, who was tracing invisible lines with his finger on the mat between his feet. Outside, they could hear Ali and the other boatmen chattering and laughing round the fire they had lighted in the big and deserted courtyard.
    “Well, what about that white man?” said Lingard, quietly.
    It seemed as if Babalatchi had not heard the question. He went on tracing elaborate patterns on the floor for a good while. Lingard waited motionless. At last the Malay lifted his head.
    “Hai! The white man. I know!” he murmured absently. “This white man or another. . . . Tuan,” he said aloud with unexpected animation, “you are a man of the sea?”
    “You know me. Why ask?” said Lingard, in a low tone.
    “Yes. A man of the sea — even as we are. A true Orang Laut,” went on Babalatchi, thoughtfully, “not like the rest of the white men.”
    “I am like other whites, and do not wish to speak many words when the truth is short. I came here to see the white man that helped Lakamba against Patalolo, who is my friend. Show me where that white man lives; I want him to hear my talk.”
    “Talk only? Tuan! Why hurry? The night is long and death is swift — as you ought to know; you who have dealt it to so many of my people. Many years ago I have faced you, arms in hand. Do you not remember? It was in Carimata — far from here.”
    “I cannot remember every vagabond that came in my way,” protested Lingard, seriously.
    “Hai! Hai!” continued Babalatchi, unmoved and dreamy. “Many years ago. Then all this” — and looking up suddenly at Lingard’s beard, he flourished his fingers below his own beardless chin — ”then all this was like gold in sunlight, now it is like the foam of an angry sea.”
    “Maybe, maybe,” said Lingard, patiently, paying the involuntary tribute of a faint sigh to the memories of the past evoked by Babalatchi’s words.
    He had been living with Malays so long and so close that the extreme deliberation and deviousness of their mental proceedings had ceased to irritate him much. To-night, perhaps, he was less prone to impatience than ever. He was disposed, if not to listen to Babalatchi, then to let him talk. It was evident to him that the man had something to say, and he hoped that from the talk a ray of light would shoot through the thick blackness of inexplicable treachery, to show him clearly — if only for a second — the man upon whom he would have to execute the verdict of justice. Justice only! Nothing was further from his thoughts than such an useless thing as revenge. Justice only. It was his duty that justice should be done — and by his own hand. He did not like to think how. To him, as to Babalatchi, it seemed that the night would be long enough for the work he had to do. But he did not define to himself the nature of the work, and he sat very still, and willingly dilatory, under the fearsome oppression of his call. What was the good to think about it? It was inevitable, and its time was near. Yet he could not command his memories that came crowding round him in that evil-smelling hut, while Babalatchi talked on in a flowing monotone, nothing of him moving but the lips, in the artificially inanimated face. Lingard, like an anchored ship that had broken her sheer, darted about here and there on the rapid tide of his recollections. The subdued sound of soft words rang around him, but his thoughts were lost, now in the contemplation of the past sweetness and strife of Carimata days, now in the uneasy wonder at the failure of his judgment; at the fatal blindness of accident that had caused him, many years