D'Alcacer, very serious, spoke in a familiar undertone.
“Mrs. Travers tells me that we must be delivered up to those Moors on shore.”
“Yes, there is nothing else for it,” said Lingard.
“I confess I am a bit startled,” said d'Alcacer; but except for a slightly hurried utterance nobody could have guessed at anything resembling emotion.
“I have a right to my good name,” said Lingard, also very calm, while Mrs. Travers near him, with half-veiled eyes, listened impassive like a presiding genius.
“I wouldn't question that for a moment,” conceded d'Alcacer. “A point of honour is not to be discussed. But there is such a thing as humanity, too. To be delivered up helplessly. . . .”
“Perhaps!” interrupted Lingard. “But you needn't feel hopeless. I am not at liberty to give up my life for your own. Mrs. Travers knows why. That, too, is engaged.”
“Always on your honour?”
“I don't know. A promise is a promise.”
“Nobody can be held to the impossible,” remarked d'Alcacer.