“Even to know that much would have been something to go by,” he ventured at last. “I couldn't let you sit there with the sun getting pretty low and a long night before us.”
“I feel stunned yet,” said Lingard, looking Carter straight in the face, as if to watch the effect of that confession.
“Were you very near that explosion?” asked the young man with sympathetic curiosity and seeking for some sign on Lingard's person. But there was nothing. Not a single hair of the Captain's head seemed to have been singed.
“Near,” muttered Lingard. “It might have been my head.” He pressed it with both hands, then let them fall. “What about that man?” he asked, brusquely. “Where did he come from? . . . I suppose he is dead now,” he added in an envious tone.
“No, sir. He must have as many lives as a cat,” answered Carter. “I will tell you how it was. As I said before I wasn't going to give you up, dead or alive, so yesterday when the sun went down a little in the afternoon I had two of our boats manned and pulled in shore, taking soundings to find a passage if there was one. I meant to go back and look for you with the brig or without the brig—but that doesn't matter now. There were three or four floating logs in sight. One of the Calashes in my boat made out something red on one of them. I thought it was worth while to go and see what it was. It was that man's sarong. It had got entangled among the branches and prevented him rolling off into the water. I was never so glad, I assure you, as when we found out that he was still breathing. If we could only nurse him back to life, I thought, he could perhaps tell me a lot of things. The log on which he hung had come out of the mouth of the creek and he couldn't have been more than half a day on it by my calculation. I had him taken down the main hatchway and put into a hammock in the 'tween-decks. He only just breathed then, but some time during the night he came to himself and got out of the hammock to lie down on a mat. I suppose he was more comfortable that way. He recovered his speech only this morning and I went down at once and told you of it, but you took no notice. I told you also who he was but I don't know whether you heard me or not.”
“I don't remember,” said Lingard under his breath.
“They are wonderful, those Malays. This morning he was only half alive, if that much, and now I understand he has been talking to Wasub for an hour. Will you go down to see him, sir, or shall I send a couple of men to carry him on deck?”
Lingard looked bewildered for a moment.
“Who on earth is he?” he asked.
“Why, it's that fellow whom you sent out, that night I met you, to catch our first gig. What do they call him? Jaffir, I think. Hasn't he been with you ashore, sir? Didn't he find you with the letter I gave him for you? A most determined looking chap. I knew him again the moment we got him off the log.”