y have two or three dugouts hauled up on
the sand and they may ferry themselves and their women to the mainland
whenever they like.

I fancy I have acted as a seaman and as a seaman I intend to go on
acting. Now I have made the ships safe I shall set about without loss of
time trying to get the yacht off the mud. When that's done I shall arm
the boats and proceed inshore to look for you and the yacht's gentry,
and shan't rest till I know whether any or all of you are above the
earth yet.

I hope these words will reach you. Just as we had done the business
of those praus the man you sent off that night in Carimata to stop our
chief officer came sailing in from the west with our first gig in
tow and the boat's crew all well. Your serang tells me he is a most
trustworthy messenger and that his name is Jaffir. He seems only too
anxious to try to get to you as soon as possible. I repeat, ships and
men have been made safe and I don't mean to give you up dead or alive.

"You are quick in taking the point," said Lingard in a dull voice, while
Mrs. Travers, with the sheet of paper gripped in her hand, looked into
his face with anxious eyes. "He has been smart and no mistake."

"He didn't know," murmured Mrs. Travers.

"No, he didn't know. But could I take everybody into my confidence?"
protested Lingard in the same low tone. "And yet who else could I trust?
It seemed to me that he must have understood without being told. But he
is too young. He may well be proud according to his lights. He has done
that job outside very smartly--damn his smartness! And here we are with
all our lives depending on my word--which is broken now, Mrs. Travers.
It is broken."

Mrs. Travers nodded at him slightly.

"They would sooner have expected to see the sun and the moon fall out of
the sky," Lingard continued with repressed fire. Next moment it seemed
to have gone out of him and Mrs. Travers heard him mutter a disconnected
phrase. . . . "The world down about my ears."

"What will you do?" she whispered.

"What will I do?" repeated Lingard, gently. "Oh, yes--do. Mrs. Travers,
do you see that I am nothing now? Just nothing."

He had lost himself in the contemplation of her face turned to him with
an expression of awed curiosity. The shock of the world coming down
about his ears in consequence of Carter's smartness was so terrific that
it had dulled his sensibilities in the manner of a great pain or of a
great catastrophe. What was there