"Made out nobody. Too far. Too dark."
As a matter of fact Jorgenson had seen nothing, about an hour before
daybreak, but the distant glare of torches while the loud shouts of an
excited multitude had reached him across the water only like a faint
and tempestuous murmur. Presently the lights went away processionally
through the groves of trees into the armed stockades. The distant glare
vanished in the fading darkness and the murmurs of the invisible crowd
ceased suddenly as if carried off by the retreating shadow of the night.
Daylight followed swiftly, disclosing to the sleepless Jorgenson the
solitude of the shore and the ghostly outlines of the familiar forms of
grouped trees and scattered human habitations. He had watched the varied
colours come out in the dawn, the wide cultivated Settlement of
many shades of green, framed far away by the fine black lines of the
forest-edge that was its limit and its protection.
Mrs. Travers stood against the rail as motionless as a statue. Her face
had lost all its mobility and her cheeks were dead white as if all the
blood in her body had flowed back into her heart and had remained there.
Her very lips had lost their colour. Lingard caught hold of her arm
roughly.
"Don't, Mrs. Travers. Why are you terrifying yourself like this? If you
don't believe what I say listen to me asking Jorgenson.
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