Belarab?"

It was a distinct overture, a disclosure of the man's innermost mind.
Jorgenson, of course, had met it with a profound silence. His task was
not diplomacy but the care of stores.

After the effort of connected mental processes in order to bring about
Mrs. Travers' departure he was anxious to dismiss the whole matter from
his mind. The last thought he gave to it was severely practical. It
occurred to him that it would be advisable to attract in some way or
other Lingard's attention to the lagoon. In the language of the sea
a single rocket is properly a signal of distress, but, in the
circumstances, a group of three sent up simultaneously would convey a
warning. He gave his orders and watched the rockets go up finely with a
trail of red sparks, a bursting of white stars high up in the air, and
three loud reports in quick succession. Then he resumed his pacing of
the whole length of the hulk, confident that after this Tom would guess
that something was up and set a close watch over the lagoon. No doubt
these mysterious rockets would have a disturbing effect on Tengga and
his friends and cause a great excitement in the Settlement; but for that
Jorgenson did not care. The Settlement was already in such a turmoil
that a little more excitement did not matter. What Jorgenson did not
expect, however, was the sound of a musket-shot fired from the jungle
facing the bows of the Emma. It caused him to stop dead short. He had
heard distinctly the bullet strike the curve of the bow forward. "Some
hot-headed ass fired that," he said to himself, contemptuously. It
simply disclosed to him the fact that he was already besieged on the
shore side and set at rest his doubts as to the length Tengga was
prepared to go. Any length! Of course there was still time for Tom to
put everything right with six words, unless . . . Jorgenson smiled,
grimly, in the dark and resumed his tireless pacing.

What amused him was to observe the fire which had been burning night
and day before Tengga's residence suddenly extinguished. He pictured
to himself the wild rush with bamboo buckets to the lagoon shore, the
confusion, the hurry and jostling in a great hissing of water midst
clouds of steam. The image of the fat Tengga's consternation appealed to
Jorgenson's sense of humour for about five seconds. Then he took up the
binoculars from the roof of the deckhouse.

The bursting of the three white stars over the lagoon had given him
a momentary gl