"This white man is being betrayed," he murmured to them with the
greatest composure.
D'Alcacer, uncomprehending, watched the scene: the Man of Fate puzzled
and fierce like a disturbed lion, the white-robed Moors, the multitude
of half-naked barbarians, squatting by the guns, standing by the
loopholes in the immobility of an arranged display. He saw Mrs. Travers
on the verandah of the prisoners' house, an anxious figure with a white
scarf over her head. Mr. Travers was no doubt too weak after his fit of
fever to come outside. If it hadn't been for that, all the whites would
have been in sight of each other at the very moment of the catastrophe
which was to give them back to the claims of their life, at the cost
of other lives sent violently out of the world. D'Alcacer heard Lingard
asking loudly for the long glass and saw Belarab make a sign with his
hand, when he felt the earth receive a violent blow from underneath.
While he staggered to it the heavens split over his head with a crash in
the lick of a red tongue of flame; and a sudden dreadful gloom fell all
round the stunned d'Alcacer, who beheld with terror the morning sun,
robbed of its rays, glow dull and brown through the sombre murk which
had taken possession of the universe. The Emma had blown up; and when
the rain of shattered timbers and mangled corpses falling into the
lagoon had ceased, the cloud of smoke hanging motionless under the livid
sun cast its shadow afar on the Shore of Refuge where all strife had
come to an end.
Pages:
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527