oked
around at the pale daybreak. "I shall talk to Belarab straight--like we
whites do. I have never seen him, but I am a strong man. Belarab must
help us to reconquer your country and when our end is attained I won't
let him eat you up."

Hassim took the ring and inclined his head.

"It's time for us to be moving," said Lingard. He felt a slight tug at
his sleeve. He looked back and caught Immada in the act of pressing her
forehead to the grey flannel. "Don't, child!" he said, softly.

The sun rose above the faint blue line of the Shore of Refuge.

The hesitation was over. The man and the vessel, working in accord, had
found their way to the faint blue shore. Before the sun had descended
half-way to its rest the brig was anchored within a gunshot of the slimy
mangroves, in a place where for a hundred years or more no white man's
vessel had been entrusted to the hold of the bottom. The adventurers
of two centuries ago had no doubt known of that anchorage for they were
very ignorant and incomparably audacious. If it is true, as some say,
that the spirits of the dead haunt the places where the living have
sinned and toiled, then they might have seen a white long-boat, pulled
by eight oars and steered by a man sunburnt and bearded, a cabbage-leaf
hat on head, and pistols in his belt, skirting the black mud, full of
twisted roots, in search of a likely opening.

Creek after creek was passed and the boat crept on slowly like a
monstrous water-spider with a big body and eight slender legs. . . . Did
you follow with your ghostly eyes the quest of this obscure adventurer
of yesterday, you shades of forgotten adventurers who, in leather
jerkins and sweating under steel helmets, attacked with long rapiers the
palisades of the strange heathen, or, musket on shoulder and match in
cock, guarded timber blockhouses built upon the banks of rivers that
command good trade? You, who, wearied with the toil of fighting, slept
wrapped in frieze mantles on the sand of quiet beaches, dreaming of
fabulous diamonds and of a far-off home.

"Here's an opening," said Lingard to Hassim, who sat at his side, just
as the sun was setting away to his left. "Here's an opening big enough
for a ship. It's the entrance we are looking for, I believe. We shall
pull all night up this creek if necessary and it's the very devil if we
don't come upon Belarab's lair before daylight."

He shoved the tiller hard over and the boat, swerving sharply, vanished