“No, I see nothing,” she said.
“You can't be looking the right way,” she heard him behind her. And now she felt her head between Lingard's hands. He moved it the least bit to the right. “There! See it?”
“No. What am I to look for?”
“A gleam of light,” said Lingard, taking away his hands suddenly. “A gleam that will grow into a blaze before our boat can get half way across the lagoon.”
Even as Lingard spoke Mrs. Travers caught sight of a red spark far away. She had looked often enough at the Settlement, as on the face of a painting on a curtain, to have its configuration fixed in her mind, to know that it was on the beach at its end furthest from Belarab's stockade.
“The brushwood is catching,” murmured Lingard in her ear. “If they had some dry grass the whole pile would be blazing by now.”
“And this means. . . .”
“It means that the news has spread. And it is before Tengga's enclosure on his end of the beach. That's where all the brains of the Settlement are. It means talk and excitement and plenty of crafty words. Tengga's fire! I tell you, Mrs. Travers, that before half an hour has passed Daman will be there to make friends with the fat Tengga, who is ready to say to him, 'I told you so'.”
“I see,” murmured Mrs. Travers. Lingard drew her gently to the rail.
“And now look over there at the other end of the beach where the shadows are heaviest. That is Belarab's fort, his houses, his treasure, his dependents. That's where the strength of the Settlement is. I kept it up. I made it last. But what is it now? It's like a weapon in the hand of a dead man. And yet it's all we have to look to, if indeed there is still time. I swear to you I wouldn't dare land them in daylight for fear they should be slaughtered on the beach.”