tal and noisy at the end of tall sticks, like fluttering
pennants; and behold, the shadows on the deck went mad and jostled each
other as if trying to escape from a doomed craft, the darkness, held
up dome-like by the brilliant glare, seemed to tumble headlong upon the
brig in an overwhelming downfall, the men stood swaying as if ready
to fall under the ruins of a black and noiseless disaster. The blurred
outlines of the brig, the masts, the rigging, seemed to shudder in the
terror of coming extinction--and then the darkness leaped upward again,
the shadows returned to their places, the men were seen distinct,
swarthy, with calm faces, with glittering eyeballs. The destruction in
the breath had passed, was gone.

A discord of three voices raised together in a drawling wail trailed on
the sudden immobility of the air.

"Brig ahoy! Give us a rope!"

The first boat-load from the yacht emerged floating slowly into the
pool of purple light wavering round the brig on the black water. Two men
squeezed in the bows pulled uncomfortably; in the middle, on a heap of
seamen's canvas bags, another sat, insecure, propped with both arms,
stiff-legged, angularly helpless. The light from the poop brought
everything out in lurid detail, and the boat floating slowly toward the
brig had a suspicious and pitiful aspect. The shabby load lumbering
her looked somehow as if it had been stolen by those men who resembled
castaways. In the sternsheets Carter, standing up, steered with his leg.
He had a smile of youthful sarcasm.

"Here they are!" he cried to Lingard. "You've got your own way, Captain.
I thought I had better come myself with the first precious lot--"

"Pull around the stern. The brig's on the swing," interrupted Lingard.

"Aye, aye! We'll try not to smash the brig. We would be lost indeed
if--fend off there, John; fend off, old reliable, if you care a pin
for your salty hide. I like the old chap," he said, when he stood by
Lingard's side looking down at the boat which was being rapidly cleared
by whites and Malays working shoulder to shoulder in silence. "I like
him. He don't belong to that yachting lot either. They picked him up
on the road somewhere. Look at the old dog--carved out of a ship's
timber--as talkative as a fish--grim as a gutted wreck. That's the man
for me. All the others there are married, or going to be, or ought
to be, or sorry they ain't. Every man jack of them has a petticoat in
tow--dash me! Never heard