"Poor devil," muttered Lingard, profoundly moved by the tragic enormity
of the act. "I suppose there was no way out?"

"I wasn't going to let her rot to pieces in some Dutch port," said
Jorgenson, gloomily. "Did you ever hear of Dawson?"

"Something--I don't remember now--" muttered Lingard, who felt a chill
down his back at the idea of his own vessel decaying slowly in some
Dutch port. "He died--didn't he?" he asked, absently, while he
wondered whether he would have the pluck to set fire to the brig--on an
emergency.

"Cut his throat on the beach below Fort Rotterdam," said Jorgenson. His
gaunt figure wavered in the unsteady moonshine as though made of mist.
"Yes. He broke some trade regulation or other and talked big about
law-courts and legal trials to the lieutenant of the Komet. 'Certainly,'
says the hound. 'Jurisdiction of Macassar, I will take your schooner
there.' Then coming into the roads he tows her full tilt on a ledge of
rocks on the north side--smash! When she was half full of water he takes
his hat off to Dawson. 'There's the shore,' says he--'go and get your
legal trial, you--Englishman--'" He lifted a long arm and shook his fist
at the moon which dodged suddenly behind a cloud. "All was lost. Poor
Dawson walked the streets for months barefooted and in rags. Then one
day he begged a knife from some charitable soul, went down to take a
last look at the wreck, and--"

"I don't interfere with the Dutch," interrupted Lingard, impatiently. "I
want Hassim to get back his own--"

"And suppose the Dutch want the things just so," returned Jorgenson.
"Anyway there is a devil in such work--drop it!"

"Look here," said Lingard, "I took these people off when they were in
their last ditch. That means something. I ought not to have meddled and
it would have been all over in a few hours. I must have meant something
when I interfered, whether I knew it or not. I meant it then--and did
not know it. Very well. I mean it now--and do know it. When you save
people from death you take a share in their life. That's how I look at
it."

Jorgenson shook his head.

"Foolishness!" he cried, then asked softly in a voice that trembled with
curiosity--"Where did you leave them?"

"With Belarab," breathed out Lingard. "You knew him in the old days."

"I knew him, I knew his father," burst out the other in an excited
whisper. "Whom did I not know? I knew Sentot when he was King of the
South Shore of Java and the Dutch offer