"Your white man doesn't fight," to which Lingard answered,
"There is nothing to fight against. What your people have seen, Belarab,
were indeed but shadows on the water." Belarab murmured, "You ought to
have allowed me to make friends with Daman last night."

A faint uneasiness was stealing into Lingard's breast.

A moment later d'Alcacer came up, inconspicuously watched over by two
men with lances, and to his anxious inquiry Lingard said: "I don't think
there is anything going on. Listen how still everything is. The only way
of bringing the matter to a test would be to persuade Belarab to let
his men march out and make an attack on Tengga's stronghold this moment.
Then we would learn something. But I couldn't persuade Belarab to march
out into this fog. Indeed, an expedition like this might end badly. I
myself don't believe that all Tengga's people are on the lagoon. . . .
Where is Mrs. Travers?"

The question made d'Alcacer start by its abruptness which revealed the
woman's possession of that man's mind. "She is with Don Martin, who is
better but feels very weak. If we are to be given up, he will have to
be carried out to his fate. I can depict to myself the scene. Don Martin
carried shoulder high surrounded by those barbarians with spears, and
Mrs. Travers with myself walking on each side of the stretcher. Mrs.
Travers has declared to me her intention to go out with us."

"Oh, she has declared her intention," murmured Lingard, absent-mindedly.

D'Alcacer felt himself completely abandoned by that man. And within
two paces of him he noticed the group of Belarab and his three swarthy
attendants in their white robes, preserving an air of serene detachment.
For the first time since the stranding on the coast d'Alcacer's heart
sank within him. "But perhaps," he went on, "this Moor may not in the
end insist on giving us up to a cruel death, Captain Lingard."

"He wanted to give you up in the middle of the night, a few hours ago,"
said Lingard, without even looking at d'Alcacer who raised his hands
a little and let them fall. Lingard sat down on the breech of a heavy
piece mounted on a naval carriage so as to command the lagoon. He folded
his arms on his breast. D'Alcacer asked, gently:

"We have been reprieved then?"

"No," said Lingard. "It's I who was reprieved."

A long silence followed. Along the whole line of the manned stockade the
whisperings had ceased. The vibrations of the gong had died out, too.
Only th