earned also that the Settlement was in a state of unrest
as if on the eve of war. Belarab with his followers was encamped by his
father's tomb in the hollow beyond the cultivated fields. His stockade
was shut up and no one appeared on the verandahs of the houses within.
You could tell there were people inside only by the smoke of the cooking
fires. Tengga's followers meantime swaggered about the Settlement
behaving tyrannically to those who were peaceable. A great madness had
descended upon the people, a madness strong as the madness of love, the
madness of battle, the desire to spill blood. A strange fear also had
made them wild. The big smoke seen that morning above the forests of
the coast was some agreed signal from Tengga to Daman but what it meant
Hassim had been unable to find out. He feared for Jorgenson's safety.
He said that while one of the war-boats was being made ready to take the
captives into the lagoon, he and his sister left the camp quietly and
got away in their canoe. The flares of the brig, reflected in a faint
loom upon the clouds, enabled them to make straight for the vessel
across the banks. Before they had gone half way these flames went out
and the darkness seemed denser than any he had known before. But it was
no greater than the darkness of his mind--he added. He had looked upon
the white men sitting unmoved and silent under the edge of swords; he
had looked at Daman, he had heard bitter words spoken; he was looking
now at his white friend--and the issue of events he could not see. One
can see men's faces but their fate, which is written on their foreheads,
one cannot see. He had no more to say, and what he had spoken was true
in every word.

IV

Lingard repeated it all to Mrs. Travers. Her courage, her intelligence,
the quickness of her apprehension, the colour of her eyes and the
intrepidity of her glance evoked in him an admiring enthusiasm. She
stood by his side! Every moment that fatal illusion clung closer to his
soul--like a garment of light--like an armour of fire.

He was unwilling to face the facts. All his life--till that day--had
been a wrestle with events in the daylight of this world, but now he
could not bring his mind to the consideration of his position. It
was Mrs. Travers who, after waiting awhile, forced on him the pain
of thought by wanting to know what bearing Hassim's news had upon the
situation.

Lingard had not the slightest doubt Daman wanted him to know what