object of his solicitude, and grasping it strongly by its long

barrel, grounded the stock at his feet.
"Perhaps it is near," said Lingard, leaning both his elbows on

the lower cross-piece of the primitive window and looking out.
"It is very black outside yet," he remarked carelessly.

Babalatchi fidgeted about.
"It is not good for you to sit where you may be seen," he

muttered.
"Why not?" asked Lingard.

"The white man sleeps, it is true," explained Babalatchi, softly;
"yet he may come out early, and he has arms."

"Ah! he has arms?" said Lingard.
"Yes; a short gun that fires many times--like yours here.

Abdulla had to give it to him."
Lingard heard Babalatchi's words, but made no movement. To the

old adventurer the idea that fire arms could be dangerous in
other hands than his own did not occur readily, and certainly not

in connection with Willems. He was so busy with the thoughts
about what he considered his own sacred duty, that he could not

give any consideration to the probable actions of the man of whom
he thought--as one may think of an executed criminal--with

wondering indignation tempered by scornful pity. While he sat
staring into the darkness, that every minute grew thinner before

his pensive eyes, like a dispersing mist, Willems appeared to him
as a figure belonging already wholly to the past--a figure that

could come in no way into his life again. He had made up his
mind, and the thing was as well as done. In his weary thoughts

he had closed this fatal, inexplicable, and horribleepisode in
his life. The worst had happened. The coming days would see the

retribution.
He had removed an enemy once or twice before, out of his path; he

had paid off some very heavy scores a good many times. Captain
Tom had been a good friend to many: but it was generally

understood, from Honolulu round about to Diego Suarez, that
Captain Tom's enmity was rather more than any man single-handed

could easily manage. He would not, as he said often, hurt a fly
as long as the fly left him alone; yet a man does not live for

years beyond the pale of civilized laws without evolving for
himself some queer notions of justice. Nobody of those he knew

had ever cared to point out to him the errors of his conceptions.
It was not worth anybody's while to run counter to Lingard's

ideas of the fitness of things--that fact was acquired to the
floating wisdom of the South Seas, of the Eastern Archipelago,

and was nowhere better understood than in out-of-the-way nooks of
the world; in those nooks which he filled, unresisted and

masterful, with the echoes of his noisy presence. There is not
much use in arguing with a man who boasts of never having

regretted a single action of his life, whose answer to a mild
criticism is a good-natured shout--"You know nothing about it. I

would do it again. Yes, sir!" His associates and his
acquaintances accepted him, his opinions, his actions like things

preordained and unchangeable; looked upon his many-sided
manifestations with passive wonder not unmixed with that

admiration which is only the rightful due of a successful man.
But nobody had ever seen him in the mood he was in now. Nobody

had seen Lingard doubtful and giving way to doubt, unable to make
up his mind and unwilling to act; Lingard timid and hesitating

one minute, angry yet inactive the next; Lingard puzzled in a
word, because confronted with a situation that discomposed him by

its unprovoked malevolence, by its ghastlyinjustice, that to his
rough but unsophisticated palate tasted distinctly" target="_blank" title="ad.清楚地，明晰地">distinctly of sulphurous

fumes from the deepest hell.
The smooth darkness filling the shutter-hole grew paler and

became blotchy with ill-defined shapes, as if a new universe was
being evolved out of sombre chaos. Then outlines came out,

defining forms without any details, indicating here a tree, there
a bush; a black belt of forest far off; the straight lines of a

house, the ridge of a high roof near by. Inside the hut,
Babalatchi, who lately had been only a persuasive voice, became a

human shape leaning its chin imprudently on the muzzle of a gun
and rolling an uneasy eye over the reappearing world. The day

came rapidly, dismal and oppressed by the fog of the river and by
the heavy vapours of the sky--a day without colour and without

sunshine: incomplete, disappointing, and sad.
Babalatchi twitched gently Lingard's sleeve, and when the old

seaman had lifted up his head interrogatively, he stretched out
an arm and a pointing forefinger towards Willems' house, now

plainly visible to the right and beyond the big tree of the
courtyard.

"Look, Tuan!" he said. "He lives there. That is the door--his
door. Through it he will appear soon, with his hair in disorder

and his mouth full of curses. That is so. He is a white man,
and never satisfied. It is in my mind he is angry even in his

sleep. A dangerous man. As Tuan may observe," he went on,
obsequiously, "his door faces this opening, where you condescend

to sit, which is concealed from all eyes. Faces it--straight--and
not far. Observe, Tuan, not at all far."

"Yes, yes; I can see. I shall see him when he wakes."
"No doubt, Tuan. When he wakes. . . . If you remain here he can

not see you. I shall withdraw quickly and prepare my canoe
myself. I am only a poor man, and must go to Sambir to greet

Lakamba when he opens his eyes. I must bow before Abdulla who
has strength--even more strength than you. Now if you remain

here, you shall easily behold the man who boasted to Abdulla that
he had been your friend, even while he prepared to fight those

who called you protector. Yes, he plotted with Abdulla for that
cursed flag. Lakamba was blind then, and I was deceived. But

you, Tuan! Remember, he deceived you more. Of that he boasted
before all men."

He leaned the gun quietly against the wall close to the window,
and said softly: "Shall I go now, Tuan? Be careful of the gun.

I have put the fire-stone in. The fire-stone of the wise man,
which never fails."

Lingard's eyes were fastened on the distant doorway. Across his
line of sight, in the grey emptiness of the courtyard, a big

fruit-pigeon flapped languidly towards the forests with a loud
booming cry, like the note of a deep gong: a brilliant bird

looking in the gloom of threatening day as black as a crow. A
serried flock of white rice birds rose above the trees with a

faint scream, and hovered, swaying in a disordered mass that
suddenly scattered in all directions, as if burst asunder by a

silent explosion. Behind his back Lingard heard a shuffle of
feet--women leaving the hut. In the other courtyard a voice was

heard complaining of cold, and coming very feeble, but
exceedingly distinct, out of the vast silence of the abandoned

houses and clearings. Babalatchi coughed discreetly. From under
the house the thumping of wooden pestles husking the rice started

with unexpected abruptness. The weak but clear voice in the yard
again urged, "Blow up the embers, O brother!" Another voice

answered, drawling in modulated, thin sing-song, "Do it yourself,
O shivering pig!" and the drawl of the last words stopped short,

as if the man had fallen into a deep hole. Babalatchi coughed
again a little impatiently, and said in a confidential tone--

"Do you think it is time for me to go, Tuan? Will you take care
of my gun, Tuan? I am a man that knows how to obey; even obey

Abdulla, who has deceived me. Nevertheless this gun carries far
and true--if you would want to know, Tuan. And I have put in a

double measure of powder, and three slugs. Yes, Tuan.
Now--perhaps--I go."

When Babalatchi commenced speaking, Lingard turned slowly round
and gazed upon him with the dull and unwilling look of a sick man