She saw the wet paddles rising and dipping with
a flash in the sunlight. She made out plainly the face of Immada, who
seemed to be looking straight into the big end of the telescope. The
chief and his sister, after resting under the bank for a couple of
hours in the middle of the night, had entered the lagoon and were making
straight for the hulk. They were already near enough to be perfectly
distinguishable to the naked eye if there had been anybody on board to
glance that way. But nobody was even thinking of them. They might not
have existed except perhaps in the memory of old Jorgenson. But that was
mostly busy with all the mysterious secrets of his late tomb.
Mrs. Travers lowered the glass suddenly. Lingard came out from a sort of
trance and said:
"Mr. d'Alcacer. Loved! Why shouldn't he?"
Mrs. Travers looked frankly into Lingard's gloomy eyes. "It isn't that
alone, of course," she said. "First of all he knew how to love and then.
. . . You don't know how artificial and barren certain kinds of life
can be. But Mr. d'Alcacer's life was not that. His devotion was worth
having."
"You seem to know a lot about him,'" said Lingard, enviously. "Why do
you smile?" She continued to smile at him for a little while. The long
brass tube over her shoulder shone like gold against the pale fairness
of her bare head.
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