was a man—as there were many—of no particular value to anybody but himself, and of no account but as the chief mate of the brig, and the only white man on board of her besides the captain. He felt himself immeasurably superior to the Malay seamen whom he had to handle, and treated them with lofty toleration, notwithstanding his opinion that at a pinch those chaps would be found emphatically “not there.”
As soon as his mind came back from his home leave, he detached himself from the rail and, walking forward, stood by the break of the poop, looking along the port side of the main deck. Lingard on his own side stopped in his walk and also gazed absentmindedly before him. In the waist of the brig, in the narrow spars that were lashed on each side of the hatchway, he could see a group of men squatting in a circle around a wooden tray piled up with rice, which stood on the just swept deck. The dark-faced, soft-eyed silent men, squatting on their hams, fed decorously with an earnestness that did not exclude reserve.
Of the lot, only one or two wore sarongs, the others having submitted—at least at sea—to the indignity of European trousers. Only two sat on the spars. One, a man with a childlike, light yellow face, smiling with fatuous imbecility under the wisps of straight coarse hair dyed a mahogany tint, was the tindal of the crew—a kind of boatswain's or serang's mate. The other, sitting beside him on the booms, was a man nearly black, not much bigger than a large ape, and wearing on his wrinkled face that look of comical truculence which is often characteristic of men from the southwestern coast of Sumatra.
This was the kassab or store-keeper, the holder of a position of dignity and ease. The kassab was the only one of the crew taking their evening meal who noticed the presence on deck of their commander. He muttered something to the tindal who directly cocked his old hat on one side, which senseless action invested him with an altogether foolish appearance. The others heard, but went on somnolently feeding with spidery movements of their lean arms.
The sun was no more than a degree or so above the horizon, and from the heated surface of the waters a slight low mist began to rise; a mist thin, invisible to the human eye; yet strong enough to change the sun into a mere glowing red disc, a disc vertical and hot, rolling down to the edge of the horizontal and cold-looking disc of the shining sea. Then the edges touched and the circular expanse of water took on suddenly a tint, sombre, like a frown; deep, like the brooding meditation of evil.
The falling sun seemed to be arrested for a moment in his descent by the sleeping waters, while from it, to the motionless brig, shot out on the polished and dark surface of the sea a track of light, straight and shining, resplendent and direct; a path of gold and crimson and purple, a path that seemed to lead dazzling and terrible from the earth straight into heaven through the portals of a glorious death. It faded slowly. The sea vanquished the light. At last only a vestige of the sun remained, far off, like a red spark floating on the water. It lingered, and all at once—without warning—went out as if extinguished by a treacherous hand.
“Gone,” cried Lingard, who had watched intently yet missed the last moment. “Gone! Look at the cabin clock, Shaw!”
“Nearly right, I think, sir. Three minutes past six.”
The helmsman struck four bells sharply. Another barefooted seacannie glided on the far side of the poop to relieve the wheel, and the serang of the brig came up the ladder to take charge of the deck from Shaw. He came up to the compass, and stood waiting silently.
“The course is south by east when you get the wind, serang,” said Shaw, distinctly.
“Sou' by eas',” repeated the elderly Malay with grave earnestness.
“Let me know when she begins to steer,” added Lingard.
“Ya, Tuan,” answered the man, glancing rapidly at the sky. “Wind coming,” he muttered.
“I think so, too,” whispered Lingard as if to himself.
The shadows were gathering rapidly round the brig. A mulatto put his head out of the companion and called out:
“Ready, sir.”
“Let's get a mouthful of something to eat, Shaw,” said Lingard. “I say, just take a look around before coming below. It will be dark when we come up again.”
“Certainly, sir,” said Shaw, taking up a long glass and putting it to his eyes. “Blessed thing,” he went on in snatches while he worked the tubes in and out, “I can't—never somehow—Ah! I've got it right at last!”
He revolved slowly on his heels, keeping the end of the tube on the sky-line. Then he shut the instrument with a click, and said decisively:
“Nothing in sight, sir.”
He followed his captain down below rubbing his hands cheerfully.
For a good while there was no sound on the poop of the brig. Then the seacannie at the wheel spoke dreamily:
“Did the malim say there was no one on the sea?”
“Yes,” grunted the serang without looking at the man behind him.
“Between the islands there was a boat,” pronounced the man very softly.
The serang, his hands behind his back, his feet slightly apart, stood very straight and stiff by the side of the compass stand. His face, now hardly visible, was as inexpressive as the door of a safe.
“Now, listen to me,” insisted the helmsman in a gentle tone.
The man in authority did not budge a hair's breadth. The seacannie bent down a little from the height of the wheel grating.
“I saw a boat,” he murmured with something of the tender obstinacy of a lover begging for a favour. “I saw a boat, O Haji Wasub! Ya! Haji Wasub!”
The serang had been twice a pilgrim, and was not insensible to the sound of his rightful title. There was a grim smile on his face.
“You saw a floating tree, O Sali,” he said, ironically.
“I am Sali, and my eyes are better than the bewitched brass thing that pulls out to a great length,” said the pertinacious helmsman. “There was a boat, just clear of the easternmost island. There was a boat, and they in her could see the ship on the light of the west—unless they are blind men lost on the sea. I have seen her. Have you seen her, too, O Haji Wasub?”
“Am I a fat white man?” snapped the serang. “I was a man of the sea before you were born, O Sali! The order is to keep silence and mind the rudder, lest evil befall the ship.”
After these words he resumed his rigid aloofness. He stood, his legs slightly apart, very stiff and straight, a little on one side of the compass stand. His eyes travelled incessantly from the illuminated card to the shadowy sails of the brig and back again, while his body was motionless as if made of wood and built into the ship's frame. Thus, with a forced and tense watchfulness, Haji Wasub, serang of the brig Lightning, kept the captain's watch unwearied and wakeful, a slave to duty.
In half an hour after sunset the darkness had taken complete possession of earth and heavens. The islands had melted into the night. And on the smooth water of the Straits, the little brig lying so still, seemed to sleep profoundly, wrapped up in a scented mantle of star light and silence.
II
It
