d mortality, like a man awakened from a dream by a
stab in the breast. What did this silence of the Emma mean? Could she
have been already carried in the fog? But that was unthinkable. Some
sounds of resistance must have been heard. No, the boats hung off
because they knew with what desperate defence they would meet; and
perhaps Jorgenson knew very well what he was doing by holding his fire
to the very last moment and letting the craven hearts grow cold with
the fear of a murderous discharge that would have to be faced. What was
certain was that this was the time for Belarab to open the great gate
and let his men go out, display his power, sweep through the further end
of the Settlement, destroy Tengga's defences, do away once for all with
the absurd rivalry of that intriguing amateur boat-builder. Lingard
turned eagerly toward Belarab but saw the Chief busy looking across the
lagoon through a long glass resting on the shoulder of a stooping slave.
He was motionless like a carving. Suddenly he let go the long glass
which some ready hands caught as it fell and said to Lingard:

"No fight."

"How do you know?" muttered Lingard, astounded.

"There are three empty sampans alongside the ladder," said Belarab in a
just audible voice. "There is bad talk there."

"Talk? I don't understand," said Lingard, slowly.

But Belarab had turned toward his three attendants in white robes,
with shaven polls under skull-caps of plaited grass, with prayer beads
hanging from their wrists, and an air of superior calm on their dark
faces: companions of his desperate days, men of blood once and now
imperturbable in their piety and wisdom of trusted counsellors.

"This white man is being betrayed," he murmured to them with the
greatest composure.

D'Alcacer, uncomprehending, watched the scene: the Man of Fate puzzled
and fierce like a disturbed lion, the white-robed Moors, the multitude
of half-naked barbarians, squatting by the guns, standing by the
loopholes in the immobility of an arranged display. He saw Mrs. Travers
on the verandah of the prisoners' house, an anxious figure with a white
scarf over her head. Mr. Travers was no doubt too weak after his fit of
fever to come outside. If it hadn't been for that, all the whites would
have been in sight of each other at the very moment of the catastrophe
which was to give them back to the claims of their life, at the cost
of other lives sent violently out of the world. D'Alcacer heard Linga