The Rescue Read Online Free Page A

island—"
    "Carimata, Shaw," interrupted Lingard.
    "Aye, sir; Carimata—I mean. I must say—being a stranger hereabouts—I
haven't got the run of those—"
    He was going to say "names" but checked himself and said,
"appellations," instead, sounding every syllable lovingly.
    "Having for these last fifteen years," he continued, "sailed regularly
from London in East-Indiamen, I am more at home over there—in the Bay."
    He pointed into the night toward the northwest and stared as if he could
see from where he stood that Bay of Bengal where—as he affirmed—he
would be so much more at home.
    "You'll soon get used—" muttered Lingard, swinging in his rapid walk
past his mate. Then he turned round, came back, and asked sharply.
    "You said there was nothing afloat in sight before dark? Hey?"
    "Not that I could see, sir. When I took the deck again at eight, I asked
that serang whether there was anything about; and I understood him to
say there was no more as when I went below at six. This is a lonely sea
at times—ain't it, sir? Now, one would think at this time of the year
the homeward-bounders from China would be pretty thick here."
    "Yes," said Lingard, "we have met very few ships since we left Pedra
Branca over the stern. Yes; it has been a lonely sea. But for all that,
Shaw, this sea, if lonely, is not blind. Every island in it is an eye.
And now, since our squadron has left for the China waters—"
    He did not finish his sentence. Shaw put his hands in his pockets, and
propped his back against the sky-light, comfortably.
    "They say there is going to be a war with China," he said in a gossiping
tone, "and the French are going along with us as they did in the Crimea
five years ago. It seems to me we're getting mighty good friends with
the French. I've not much of an opinion about that. What do you think,
Captain Lingard?"
    "I have met their men-of-war in the Pacific," said Lingard, slowly. "The
ships were fine and the fellows in them were civil enough to me—and
very curious about my business," he added with a laugh. "However, I
wasn't there to make war on them. I had a rotten old cutter then, for
trade, Shaw," he went on with animation.
    "Had you, sir?" said Shaw without any enthusiasm. "Now give me a big
ship—a ship, I say, that one may—"
    "And later on, some years ago," interrupted Lingard, "I chummed with
a French skipper in Ampanam—being the only two white men in the whole
place. He was a good fellow, and free with his red wine. His English
was difficult to understand, but he could sing songs in his own language
about ah-moor—Ah-moor means love, in French—Shaw."
    "So it does, sir—so it does. When I was second mate of a Sunderland
barque, in forty-one, in the Mediterranean, I could pay out their lingo
as easy as you would a five-inch warp over a ship's side—"
    "Yes, he was a proper man," pursued Lingard, meditatively, as if for
himself only. "You could not find a better fellow for company ashore. He
had an affair with a Bali girl, who one evening threw a red blossom at
him from within a doorway, as we were going together to pay our respects
to the Rajah's nephew. He was a good-looking Frenchman, he was—but the
girl belonged to the Rajah's nephew, and it was a serious matter. The
old Rajah got angry and said the girl must die. I don't think the nephew
cared particularly to have her krissed; but the old fellow made a great
fuss and sent one of his own chief men to see the thing done—and the
girl had enemies—her own relations approved! We could do nothing. Mind,
Shaw, there was absolutely nothing else between them but that unlucky
flower which the Frenchman pinned to his coat—and afterward, when the
girl was dead, wore under his shirt, hung round his neck in a small box.
I suppose he had nothing else to put it into."
    "Would those savages kill a woman for that?" asked Shaw, incredulously.
    "Aye! They are pretty moral there. That was the first time in my life
I nearly went to war on my own account,