all grasses swayed themselves into a rest, a chorus of yells
and piercing shrieks died out in a dismal howl, and all at once the
wooded shores and the blue bay seemed to fall under the spell of a
luminous stillness. The change was as startling as the awakening from a
dream. The sudden silence struck Lingard as amazing.

He broke it by lifting his voice in a stentorian shout, which arrested
the pursuit of his men. They retired reluctantly, glaring back angrily
at the wall of a jungle where not a single leaf stirred. The strangers,
whose opportune appearance had decided the issue of that adventure, did
not attempt to join in the pursuit but halted in a compact body on the
ground lately occupied by the savages.

Lingard and the young leader of the Wajo traders met in the splendid
light of noonday, and amidst the attentive silence of their followers,
on the very spot where the Malay seaman had lost his life. Lingard,
striding up from one side, thrust out his open palm; Hassim responded at
once to the frank gesture and they exchanged their first hand-clasp over
the prostrate body, as if fate had already exacted the price of a death
for the most ominous of her gifts--the gift of friendship that sometimes
contains the whole good or evil of a life.

"I'll never forget this day," cried Lingard in a hearty tone; and the
other smiled quietly.

Then after a short pause--"Will you burn the village for vengeance?"
asked the Malay with a quick glance down at the dead Lascar who, on his
face and with stretched arms, seemed to cling desperately to that earth
of which he had known so little.

Lingard hesitated.

"No," he said, at last. "It would do good to no one."

"True," said Hassim, gently, "but was this man your debtor--a slave?"

"Slave?" cried Lingard. "This is an English brig. Slave? No. A free man
like myself."

"Hai. He is indeed free now," muttered the Malay with another glance
downward. "But who will pay the bereaved for his life?"

"If there is anywhere a woman or child belonging to him, I--my serang
would know--I shall seek them out," cried Lingard, remorsefully.

"You speak like a chief," said Hassim, "only our great men do not go
to battle with naked hands. O you white men! O the valour of you white
men!"

"It was folly, pure folly," protested Lingard, "and this poor fellow has
paid for it."

"He could not avoid his destiny," murmured the Malay. "It is in my mind
my trading is finished now in this place,"