“God alone knows the future,” he said.

Lingard walked to the beach by himself, feeling a stranger to all men and abandoned by the All-Knowing God.  By that time the first boat with Mr. and Mrs. Travers had already got away out of the blood-red light thrown by the torches upon the water.  D’Alcacer and Lingard followed in the second.  Presently the dark shade of the creek, walled in by the impenetrable forest, closed round them and the splash of the paddles echoed in the still, damp air.

“How do you think this awful accident happened?” asked d’Alcacer, who had been sitting silent by Lingard’s side.

“What is an accident?” said Lingard with a great effort.  “Where did you hear of such a thing?  Accident!  Don’t disturb me, Mr. d’Alcacer.  I have just come back to life and it has closed on me colder and darker than the grave itself.  Let me get used . . .  I can’t bear the sound of a human voice yet.”

VIII

And now, stoical in the cold and darkness of his regained life, Lingard had to listen to the voice of Wasub telling him Jaffir’s story.  The old serang’s face expressed a profound dejection and there was infinite sadness in the flowing murmur of his words.

“Yes, by Allah!  They were all there:  that tyrannical Tengga, noisy like a fool; the Rajah Hassim, a ruler without a country; Daman, the wandering chief, and the three Pangerans of the sea-robbers.  They came on board boldly, for Tuan Jorgenson had given them permission, and their talk was that you, Tuan, were a willing captive in Belarab’s stockade.  They said they had waited all night for a message of peace from you or from Belarab.  But there was nothing, and with the first sign of day they put out on the lagoon to make friends with Tuan Jorgenson; for, they said, you, Tuan, were as if you had not been, possessing no more power than a dead man, the mere slave of these strange white people, and Belarab’s prisoner.  Thus Tengga talked.  God had taken from him all wisdom and all fear.  And then he must have thought he was safe while Rajah Hassim and the lady Immada were on board.  I tell you they sat there in the midst of your enemies, captive!  The lady Immada, with her face covered, mourned to herself.  The Rajah Hassim made a sign to Jaffir and Jaffir came to stand by his side and talked to his lord.  The main hatch was open and many of the Illanuns crowded there to look down at the goods that were inside the ship.  They had never seen so much loot in their lives.  Jaffir and his lord could hear plainly Tuan Jorgenson and Tengga talking together.  Tengga discoursed loudly and his words were the words of a doomed man, for he was asking Tuan Jorgenson to give up the arms and everything that was on board the Emma to himself and to Daman.  And then, he said, ’We shall fight Belarab and make friends with these strange white people by behaving generously to them and letting them sail away unharmed