t of the torch against the blackness
of the stockade. He strained his hearing for a possible volley of
musketry fire but no sound came to him over the broad surface of the
lagoon. Over there the man with the torch, the other paddler, and Jaffir
himself impelling with a gentle motion of his paddle the canoe toward
the shore, had the glistening eyeballs and the tense faces of silent
excitement. The ruddy glare smote Mrs. Travers' closed eyelids but she
didn't open her eyes till she felt the canoe touch the strand. The two
men leaped instantly out of it. Mrs. Travers rose, abruptly. Nobody made
a sound. She stumbled out of the canoe on to the beach and almost before
she had recovered her balance the torch was thrust into her hand.
The heat, the nearness of the blaze confused and blinded her till,
instinctively, she raised the torch high above her head. For a moment
she stood still, holding aloft the fierce flame from which a few sparks
were falling slowly.

A naked bronze arm lighted from above pointed out the direction and Mrs.
Travers began to walk toward the featureless black mass of the stockade.
When after a few steps she looked back over her shoulder, the lagoon,
the beach, the canoe, the men she had just left had become already
invisible. She was alone bearing up a blazing torch on an earth that was
a dumb shadow shifting under her feet. At last she reached firmer ground
and the dark length of the palisade untouched as yet by the light of the
torch seemed to her immense, intimidating. She felt ready to drop from
sheer emotion. But she moved on.

"A little more to the left," shouted a strong voice.

It vibrated through all her fibres, rousing like the call of a trumpet,
went far beyond her, filled all the space. Mrs. Travers stood still for
a moment, then casting far away from her the burning torch ran forward
blindly with her hands extended toward the great sound of Lingard's
voice, leaving behind her the light flaring and spluttering on the
ground. She stumbled and was only saved from a fall by her hands coming
in contact with the rough stakes. The stockade rose high above her
head and she clung to it with widely open arms, pressing her whole body
against the rugged surface of that enormous and unscalable palisade. She
heard through it low voices inside, heavy thuds; and felt at every blow
a slight vibration of the ground under her feet. She glanced fearfully
over her shoulder and saw nothing in the darkness but