to look at but that woman's face, in
a world which had lost its consistency, its shape, and its promises in a
moment?

Mrs. Travers looked away. She understood that she had put to Lingard an
impossible question. What was presenting itself to her as a problem was
to that man a crisis of feeling. Obviously Carter's action had broken
the compact entered into with Daman, and she was intelligent enough to
understand that it was the sort of thing that could not be explained
away. It wasn't horror that she felt, but a sort of consternation,
something like the discomfiture of people who have just missed their
train. It was only more intense. The real dismay had yet to make its way
into her comprehension. To Lingard it was a blow struck straight at his
heart.

He was not angry with Carter. The fellow had acted like a seaman.
Carter's concern was for the ships. In this fatality Carter was a mere
incident. The real cause of the disaster was somewhere else, was other,
and more remote. And at the same time Lingard could not defend himself
from a feeling that it was in himself, too, somewhere in the unexplored
depths of his nature, something fatal and unavoidable. He muttered to
himself:

"No. I am not a lucky man."

This was but a feeble expression of the discovery of the truth that
suddenly had come home to him as if driven into his breast by a
revealing power which had decided that this was to be the end of his
fling. But he was not the man to give himself up to the examination
of his own sensations. His natural impulse was to grapple with the
circumstances and that was what he was trying to do; but he missed now
that sense of mastery which is half the battle. Conflict of some sort
was the very essence of his life. But this was something he had never
known before. This was a conflict within himself. He had to face
unsuspected powers, foes that he could not go out to meet at the gate.
They were within, as though he had been betrayed by somebody, by some
secret enemy. He was ready to look round for that subtle traitor. A
sort of blankness fell on his mind and he suddenly thought: "Why! It's
myself."

Immediately afterward he had a clear, merciless recollection of Hassim
and Immada. He saw them far off beyond the forests. Oh, yes, they
existed--within his breast!

"That was a night!" he muttered, looking straight at Mrs. Travers. He
had been looking at her all the time. His glance had held her under a
spell, but for a whole