The last page fluttered on the table out of Lingard's fingers. He sat very still for a moment looking straight before him, then went on deck.
“Our boats back yet?” he asked Shaw, whom he saw prowling on the quarter-deck.
“No, sir, I wish they were. I am waiting for them to go and turn in,” answered the mate in an aggrieved manner.
“Lower that lantern forward there,” cried Lingard, suddenly, in Malay.
“This trade isn't fit for a decent man,” muttered Shaw to himself, and he moved away to lean on the rail, looking moodily to seaward. After a while: “There seems to be commotion on board that yacht,” he said. “I see a lot of lights moving about her decks. Anything wrong, do you think, sir?”
“No, I know what it is,” said Lingard in a tone of elation. She has done it! he thought.
He returned to the cabin, put away Jorgenson's letter and pulled out the drawer of the table. It was full of cartridges. He took a musket down, loaded it, then took another and another. He hammered at the waddings with fierce joyousness. The ramrods rang and jumped. It seemed to him he was doing his share of some work in which that woman was playing her part faithfully. “She has done it,” he repeated, mentally. “She will sit in the cuddy. She will sleep in my berth. Well, I'm not ashamed of the brig. By heavens—no! I shall keep away: never come near them as I've promised. Now there's nothing more to say. I've told her everything at once. There's nothing more.”
He felt a heaviness in his burning breast, in all his limbs as if the blood in his veins had become molten lead.
“I shall get the yacht off. Three, four days—no, a week.”
He found he couldn't do it under a week. It occurred to him he would see her every day till the yacht was afloat. No, he wouldn't intrude, but he was master and owner of the brig after all. He didn't mean to skulk like a whipped cur about his own decks.