for the help.  “And I also would pay,” says he, “if you let me have a few guns and a little powder for my men.  You and I shall share the loot of that ship outside, and Tuan Lingard will not know.  It is only a little game.  You have plenty of guns and powder under your care.”  He meant in the Emma.  On that I spoke out pretty straight and we got rather warm until at last he gave me to understand that as he had about forty followers of his own and I had only nine of Hassim’s chaps to defend the Emma with, he could very well go for me and get the lot.  “And then,” says he, “I would be so strong that everybody would be on my side.”  I discovered in the course of further talk that there is a notion amongst many people that you have come to grief in some way and won’t show up here any more.  After this I saw the position was serious and I was in a hurry to get back to the Emma, but pretending I did not care I smiled and thanked Tengga for giving me warning of his intentions about me and the Emma.  At this he nearly choked himself with his betel quid and fixing me with his little eyes, muttered:  “Even a lizard will give a fly the time to say its prayers.”  I turned my back on him and was very thankful to get beyond the throw of a spear.  I haven’t been out of the Emma since.

IX

The letter went on to enlarge on the intrigues of Tengga, the wavering conduct of Belarab, and the state of the public mind.  It noted every gust of opinion and every event, with an earnestness of belief in their importance befitting the chronicle of a crisis in the history of an empire.  The shade of Jorgenson had, indeed, stepped back into the life of men.  The old adventurer looked on with a perfect understanding of the value of trifles, using his eyes for that other man whose conscience would have the task to unravel the tangle.  Lingard lived through those days in the Settlement and was thankful to Jorgenson; only as he lived not from day to day but from sentence to sentence of the writing, there was an effect of bewildering rapidity in the succession of events that made him grunt with surprise sometimes or growl—­“What?” to himself angrily and turn back several lines or a whole page more than once.  Toward the end he had a heavy frown of perplexity and fidgeted as he read: 

—­and I began to think I could keep things quiet till you came or those wretched white people got their schooner off, when Sherif Daman arrived from the north on the very day he was expected, with two Illanun praus.  He looks like an Arab.  It was very evident to me he can wind the two Illanun pangerans round his little finger.  The two praus are large and armed.  They came up the creek, flags and streamers flying, beating drums and gongs, and entered the lagoon with their decks full of armed men brandishing two-handed swords and sounding the war cry.  It is a fine force for you, only Belarab who is a perverse devil would not receive Sherif Daman at once.  So Daman went to see Tengga who detained him a very long time.  Leaving Tengga he came on board the Emma, and I could see directly there was something up.