It caused him to stop dead short. He had
heard distinctly the bullet strike the curve of the bow forward. "Some
hot-headed ass fired that," he said to himself, contemptuously. It
simply disclosed to him the fact that he was already besieged on the
shore side and set at rest his doubts as to the length Tengga was
prepared to go. Any length! Of course there was still time for Tom to
put everything right with six words, unless . . . Jorgenson smiled,
grimly, in the dark and resumed his tireless pacing.
What amused him was to observe the fire which had been burning night
and day before Tengga's residence suddenly extinguished. He pictured
to himself the wild rush with bamboo buckets to the lagoon shore, the
confusion, the hurry and jostling in a great hissing of water midst
clouds of steam. The image of the fat Tengga's consternation appealed to
Jorgenson's sense of humour for about five seconds. Then he took up the
binoculars from the roof of the deckhouse.
The bursting of the three white stars over the lagoon had given him
a momentary glimpse of the black speck of the canoe taking over Mrs.
Travers. He couldn't find it again with the glass, it was too dark; but
the part of the shore for which it was steered would be somewhere near
the angle of Belarab's stockade nearest to the beach.
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