“All luck to you, King Tom,” he heard her say in the darkness in which he seemed now to perceive the gleam of her hair. “I will take my chance. And try not to come near me again for I am weary of you.”
“I can well believe it,” murmured Lingard, and stepped out of the cabin, shutting the door after him gently. For half a minute, perhaps, the stillness continued, and then suddenly the chair fell over in the darkness. Next moment Mrs. Travers' head appeared in the light of the lamp left on the roof of the deckhouse. Her bare arms grasped the door posts.
“Wait a moment,” she said, loudly, into the shadows of the deck. She heard no footsteps, saw nothing moving except the vanishing white shape of the late Captain H. C. Jorgenson, who was indifferent to the life of men. “Wait, King Tom!” she insisted, raising her voice; then, “I didn't mean it. Don't believe me!” she cried, recklessly.
For the second time that night a woman's voice startled the hearts of men on board the Emma. All except the heart of old Jorgenson. The Malays in the boat looked up from their thwarts. D'Alcacer, sitting in the stern sheets beside Lingard, felt a sinking of his heart.
“What's this?” he exclaimed. “I heard your name on deck. You are wanted, I think.”
“Shove off,” ordered Lingard, inflexibly, without even looking at d'Alcacer. Mr. Travers was the only one who didn't seem to be aware of anything. A long time after the boat left the Emma's side he leaned toward d'Alcacer.
“I have a most extraordinary feeling,” he said in a cautious undertone. “I seem to be in the air—I don't know. Are we on the water, d'Alcacer? Are you quite sure? But of course, we are on the water.”
“Yes,” said d'Alcacer, in the same tone. “Crossing the Styx—perhaps.” He heard Mr. Travers utter an unmoved “Very likely,” which he did not expect. Lingard, his hand on the tiller, sat like a man of stone.
“Then your point of view has changed,” whispered d'Alcacer.
“I told my wife to make an offer,” went on the earnest whisper of the other man. “A sum of money. But to tell you the truth I don't believe very much in its success.”