“There's only a message from the yacht,” began Shaw, deliberately.
“Yacht! Get the deck lamps along here in the waist! See the ladder lowered. Bear a hand, serang! Mr. Shaw! Burn the flare up aft. Two of them! Give light to the yacht's boats that will be coming alongside. Steward! Where's that steward? Turn him out then.”
Bare feet began to patter all round Carter. Shadows glided swiftly.
“Are these flares coming? Where's the quartermaster on duty?” shouted Lingard in English and Malay. “This way, come here! Put it on a rocket stick—can't you? Hold over the side—thus! Stand by with the lines for the boats forward there. Mr. Shaw—we want more light!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” called out Shaw, but he did not move, as if dazed by the vehemence of his commander.
“That's what we want,” muttered Carter under his breath. “Imposter! What do you call yourself?” he said half aloud to Shaw.
The ruddy glare of the flares disclosed Lingard from head to foot, standing at the break of the poop. His head was bare, his face, crudely lighted, had a fierce and changing expression in the sway of flames.
“What can be his game?” thought Carter, impressed by the powerful and wild aspect of that figure. “He's changed somehow since I saw him first,” he reflected. It struck him the change was serious, not exactly for the worse, perhaps—and yet. . . . Lingard smiled at him from the poop.
Carter went up the steps and without pausing informed him of what had happened.
“Mrs. Travers told me to go to you at once. She's very upset as you may guess,” he drawled, looking Lingard hard in the face. Lingard knitted his eyebrows. “The hands, too, are scared,” Carter went on. “They fancy the savages, or whatever they may be who stole the owner, are going to board the yacht every minute. I don't think so myself but—”