She was going. Yes--taking the risk for Tom's sake.
"Nobody can resist that man," Jorgenson muttered to himself with
increasing moroseness. "_I_ couldn't."
IV
Jorgenson, after seeing the canoe leave the ship's side, ceased to live
intellectually. There was no need for more thinking, for any display
of mental ingenuity. He had done with it all. All his notions were
perfectly fixed and he could go over them in the same ghostly way in
which he haunted the deck of the Emma. At the sight of the ring Lingard
would return to Hassim and Immada, now captives, too, though Jorgenson
certainly did not think them in any serious danger. What had happened
really was that Tengga was now holding hostages, and those Jorgenson
looked upon as Lingard's own people. They were his. He had gone in with
them deep, very deep. They had a hold and a claim on King Tom just as
many years ago people of that very race had had a hold and a claim
on him, Jorgenson. Only Tom was a much bigger man. A very big man.
Nevertheless, Jorgenson didn't see why he should escape his own
fate--Jorgenson's fate--to be absorbed, captured, made their own either
in failure or in success. It was an unavoidable fatality and Jorgenson
felt certain that the ring would compel Lingard to face it without
flinching. What he really wanted Lingard to do was to cease to take the
slightest interest in those whites--who were the sort of people that
left no footprints.
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