“Yes, you came,” said Lingard, violently. “But have you really come? I can't believe my eyes! Are you really here?”
“This is a dark spot, luckily,” said Mrs. Travers. “But can you really have any doubt?” she added, significantly.
He made a sudden movement toward her, betraying so much passion that Mrs. Travers thought, “I shan't come out alive this time,” and yet he was there, motionless before her, as though he had never stirred. It was more as though the earth had made a sudden movement under his feet without being able to destroy his balance. But the earth under Mrs. Travers' feet had made no movement and for a second she was overwhelmed by wonder not at this proof of her own self-possession but at the man's immense power over himself. If it had not been for her strange inward exhaustion she would perhaps have surrendered to that power. But it seemed to her that she had nothing in her worth surrendering, and it was in a perfectly even tone that she said, “Give me your arm, Captain Lingard. We can't stay all night on this spot.”
As they moved on she thought, “There is real greatness in that man.” He was great even in his behaviour. No apologies, no explanations, no abasement, no violence, and not even the slightest tremor of the frame holding that bold and perplexed soul. She knew that for certain because her fingers were resting lightly on Lingard's arm while she walked slowly by his side as though he were taking her down to dinner. And yet she couldn't suppose for a moment, that, like herself, he was emptied of all emotion. She never before was so aware of him as a dangerous force. “He is really ruthless,” she thought. They had just left the shadow of the inner defences about the gate when a slightly hoarse, apologetic voice was heard behind them repeating insistently, what even Mrs. Travers' ear detected to be a sort of formula. The words were: “There is this thing—there is this thing—there is this thing.” They turned round.
“Oh, my scarf,” said Mrs. Travers.
A short, squat, broad-faced young fellow having for all costume a pair of white drawers was offering the scarf thrown over both his arms, as if they had been sticks, and holding it respectfully as far as possible from his person. Lingard took it from him and Mrs. Travers claimed it at once. “Don't forget the proprieties,” she said. “This is also my face veil.”
She was arranging it about her head when Lingard said, “There is no need. I am taking you to those gentlemen.”—“I will use it all the same,” said Mrs. Travers. “This thing works both ways, as a matter of propriety or as a matter of precaution. Till I have an opportunity of looking into a mirror nothing will persuade me that there isn't some change in my face.” Lingard swung half round and gazed down at her. Veiled now she confronted him boldly. “Tell me, Captain Lingard, how many eyes were looking at us a little while ago?”
“Do you care?” he asked.
“Not in the least,” she said. “A million stars were looking on, too, and what did it matter? They were not of the world I know. And it's just the same with the eyes. They are not of the world I live in.”
Lingard thought: “Nobody is.” Never before had she seemed to him more unapproachable, more different and more remote. The glow of a number of small fires lighted the ground only, and brought out the black bulk of men lying down in the thin drift of smoke. Only one of these fires, rather apart and burning in front of the house which was the quarter of the prisoners, might have been called a blaze and even that was not a great one. It didn't penetrate the dark space between the piles and the depth of the verandah above where only a couple of heads and the glint of a spearhead could be seen dimly in the play of the light. But down on the ground outside, the black shape of a man seated on a bench had an intense relief. Another intensely black shadow threw a handful of brushwood on the fire and went away. The man on the bench got up. It was d'Alcacer. He let Lingard and Mrs. Travers come quite close up to him. Extreme surprise seemed to have made him dumb.