e twitched, as he descended in his turn and
walked aft along the decks of the Emma. His faded eyes, which had seen
so much, did not attempt to explore the night, they never gave a glance
to the silent watchers against whom he brushed. Had a light been flashed
on him suddenly he would have appeared like a man walking in his sleep:
the somnambulist of an eternal dream. Mrs. Travers heard his footsteps
pass along the side of the deckhouse. She heard them--and let her head
fall again on her bare arms thrown over the little desk before which she
sat.

Jorgenson, standing by the taffrail, noted the faint reddish glow in the
massive blackness of the further shore. Jorgenson noted things quickly,
cursorily, perfunctorily, as phenomena unrelated to his own apparitional
existence of a visiting ghost. They were but passages in the game of men
who were still playing at life. He knew too well how much that game was
worth to be concerned about its course. He had given up the habit
of thinking for so long that the sudden resumption of it irked him
exceedingly, especially as he had to think on toward a conclusion. In
that world of eternal oblivion, of which he had tasted before Lingard
made him step back into the life of men, all things were settled
once for all. He was irritated by his own perplexity which was like a
reminder of that mortality made up of questions and passions from which
he had fancied he had freed himself forever. By a natural association
his contemptuous annoyance embraced the existence of Mrs. Travers, too,
for how could he think of Tom Lingard, of what was good or bad for King
Tom, without thinking also of that woman who had managed to put the
ghost of a spark even into his own extinguished eyes? She was of no
account; but Tom's integrity was. It was of Tom that he had to think, of
what was good or bad for Tom in that absurd and deadly game of his life.
Finally he reached the conclusion that to be given the ring would be
good for Tom Lingard. Just to be given the ring and no more. The ring
and no more.

"It will help him to make up his mind," muttered Jorgenson in his
moustache, as if compelled by an obscure conviction. It was only then
that he stirred slightly and turned away from the loom of the fires on
the distant shore. Mrs. Travers heard his footsteps passing again along
the side of the deckhouse--and this time never raised her head. That
man was sleepless, mad, childish, and inflexible. He was impossible.