tinwood panel of the bulkhead, then raising his old eyes with a
watchful and benevolent expression to the white man's face, clasped his
hands between his knees.

"Wasub, you have learned now everything. Is there no one left alive but
Jaffir? Are they all dead?"

"May you live!" answered Wasub; and Lingard whispered an appalled "All
dead!" to which Wasub nodded slightly twice. His cracked voice had a
lamenting intonation. "It is all true! It is all true! You are left
alone, Tuan; you are left alone!"

"It was their destiny," said Lingard at last, with forced calmness. "But
has Jaffir told you of the manner of this calamity? How is it that he
alone came out alive from it to be found by you?"

"He was told by his lord to depart and he obeyed," began Wasub, fixing
his eyes on the deck and speaking just loud enough to be heard by
Lingard, who, bending forward in his seat, shrank inwardly from every
word and yet would not have missed a single one of them for anything.

For the catastrophe had fallen on his head like a bolt from the blue in
the early morning hours of the day before. At the first break of dawn he
had been sent for to resume, his talk with Belarab. He had felt
suddenly Mrs. Travers remove her hand from his head. Her voice speaking
intimately into his ear: "Get up. There are some people coming," had
recalled him to himself. He had got up from the ground. The light was
dim, the air full of mist; and it was only gradually that he began to
make out forms above his head and about his feet: trees, houses, men
sleeping on the ground. He didn't recognize them. It was but a cruel
change of dream. Who could tell what was real in this world? He looked
about him, dazedly; he was still drunk with the deep draught of oblivion
he had conquered for himself. Yes--but it was she who had let him snatch
the cup. He looked down at the woman on the bench. She moved not. She
had remained like that, still for hours, giving him a waking dream
of rest without end, in an infinity of happiness without sound and
movement, without thought, without joy; but with an infinite ease of
content, like a world-embracing reverie breathing the air of sadness and
scented with love. For hours she had not moved.

"You are the most generous of women," he said. He bent over her. Her
eyes were wide open. Her lips felt cold. It did not shock him. After he
stood up he remained near her. Heat is a consuming thing, but she with
her cold lips seemed to him