."

"Yes," said Lingard, "we have met very few ships since we left Pedra
Branca over the stern. Yes; it has been a lonely sea. But for all that,
Shaw, this sea, if lonely, is not blind. Every island in it is an eye.
And now, since our squadron has left for the China waters--"

He did not finish his sentence. Shaw put his hands in his pockets, and
propped his back against the sky-light, comfortably.

"They say there is going to be a war with China," he said in a gossiping
tone, "and the French are going along with us as they did in the Crimea
five years ago. It seems to me we're getting mighty good friends with
the French. I've not much of an opinion about that. What do you think,
Captain Lingard?"

"I have met their men-of-war in the Pacific," said Lingard, slowly. "The
ships were fine and the fellows in them were civil enough to me--and
very curious about my business," he added with a laugh. "However, I
wasn't there to make war on them. I had a rotten old cutter then, for
trade, Shaw," he went on with animation.

"Had you, sir?" said Shaw without any enthusiasm. "Now give me a big
ship--a ship, I say, that one may--"

"And later on, some years ago," interrupted Lingard, "I chummed with
a French skipper in Ampanam--being the only two white men in the whole
place. He was a good fellow, and free with his red wine. His English
was difficult to understand, but he could sing songs in his own language
about ah-moor--Ah-moor means love, in French--Shaw."

"So it does, sir--so it does. When I was second mate of a Sunderland
barque, in forty-one, in the Mediterranean, I could pay out their lingo
as easy as you would a five-inch warp over a ship's side--"

"Yes, he was a proper man," pursued Lingard, meditatively, as if for
himself only. "You could not find a better fellow for company ashore. He
had an affair with a Bali girl, who one evening threw a red blossom at
him from within a doorway, as we were going together to pay our respects
to the Rajah's nephew. He was a good-looking Frenchman, he was--but the
girl belonged to the Rajah's nephew, and it was a serious matter. The
old Rajah got angry and said the girl must die. I don't think the nephew
cared particularly to have her krissed; but the old fellow made a great
fuss and sent one of his own chief men to see the thing done--and the
girl had enemies--her own relations approved! We could do nothing. Mind,
Shaw, there was absolutely nothing else between them but that un