The Rescue. Джозеф Конрад

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СКАЧАТЬ upon the sea. “I have read the tale. She was very beautiful.”

      “That only makes it worse, sir—if anything. You may depend on it she was no good. Those pagan times will never come back, thank God. Ten years of murder and unrighteousness! And for a woman! Would anybody do it now? Would you do it, sir? Would you—”

      The sound of a bell struck sharply interrupted Shaw's discourse. High aloft, some dry block sent out a screech, short and lamentable, like a cry of pain. It pierced the quietness of the night to the very core, and seemed to destroy the reserve which it had imposed upon the tones of the two men, who spoke now loudly.

      “Throw the cover over the binnacle,” said Lingard in his duty voice. “The thing shines like a full moon. We mustn't show more lights than we can help, when becalmed at night so near the land. No use in being seen if you can't see yourself—is there? Bear that in mind, Mr. Shaw. There may be some vagabonds prying about—”

      “I thought all this was over and done for,” said Shaw, busying himself with the cover, “since Sir Thomas Cochrane swept along the Borneo coast with his squadron some years ago. He did a rare lot of fighting—didn't he? We heard about it from the chaps of the sloop Diana that was refitting in Calcutta when I was there in the Warwick Castle. They took some king's town up a river hereabouts. The chaps were full of it.”

      “Sir Thomas did good work,” answered Lingard, “but it will be a long time before these seas are as safe as the English Channel is in peace time. I spoke about that light more to get you in the way of things to be attended to in these seas than for anything else. Did you notice how few native craft we've sighted for all these days we have been drifting about—one may say—in this sea?”

      “I can't say I have attached any significance to the fact, sir.”

      “It's a sign that something is up. Once set a rumour afloat in these waters, and it will make its way from island to island, without any breeze to drive it along.”

      “Being myself a deep-water man sailing steadily out of home ports nearly all my life,” said Shaw with great deliberation, “I cannot pretend to see through the peculiarities of them out-of-the-way parts. But I can keep a lookout in an ordinary way, and I have noticed that craft of any kind seemed scarce, for the last few days: considering that we had land aboard of us—one side or another—nearly every day.”

      “You will get to know the peculiarities, as you call them, if you remain any time with me,” remarked Lingard, negligently.

      “I hope I shall give satisfaction, whether the time be long or short!” said Shaw, accentuating the meaning of his words by the distinctness of his utterance. “A man who has spent thirty-two years of his life on saltwater can say no more. If being an officer of home ships for the last fifteen years I don't understand the heathen ways of them there savages, in matters of seamanship and duty, you will find me all there, Captain Lingard.”

      “Except, judging from what you said a little while ago—except in the matter of fighting,” said Lingard, with a short laugh.

      “Fighting! I am not aware that anybody wants to fight me. I am a peaceable man, Captain Lingard, but when put to it, I could fight as well as any of them flat-nosed chaps we have to make shift with, instead of a proper crew of decent Christians. Fighting!” he went on with unexpected pugnacity of tone, “Fighting! If anybody comes to fight me, he will find me all there, I swear!”

      “That's all right. That's all right,” said Lingard, stretching his arms above his head and wriggling his shoulders. “My word! I do wish a breeze would come to let us get away from here. I am rather in a hurry, Shaw.”

      “Indeed, sir! Well, I never yet met a thorough seafaring man who was not in a hurry when a con-demned spell of calm had him by the heels. When a breeze comes … just listen to this, sir!”

      “I hear it,” said Lingard. “Tide-rip, Shaw.”

      “So I presume, sir. But what a fuss it makes. Seldom heard such a—”

      On the sea, upon the furthest limits of vision, appeared an advancing streak of seething foam, resembling a narrow white ribbon, drawn rapidly along the level surface of the water by its two ends, which were lost in the darkness. It reached the brig, passed under, stretching out on each side; and on each side the water became noisy, breaking into numerous and tiny wavelets, a mimicry of an immense agitation. Yet the vessel in the midst of this sudden and loud disturbance remained as motionless and steady as if she had been securely moored between the stone walls of a safe dock. In a few moments the line of foam and ripple running swiftly north passed at once beyond sight and earshot, leaving no trace on the unconquerable calm.

      “Now this is very curious—” began Shaw.

      Lingard made a gesture to command silence. He seemed to listen yet, as if the wash of the ripple could have had an echo which he expected to hear. And a man's voice that was heard forward had something of the impersonal ring of voices thrown back from hard and lofty cliffs upon the empty distances of the sea. It spoke in Malay—faintly.

      “What?” hailed Shaw. “What is it?”

      Lingard put a restraining hand for a moment on his chief officer's shoulder, and moved forward smartly. Shaw followed, puzzled. The rapid exchange of incomprehensible words thrown backward and forward through the shadows of the brig's main deck from his captain to the lookout man and back again, made him feel sadly out of it, somehow.

      Lingard had called out sharply—“What do you see?” The answer direct and quick was—“I hear, Tuan. I hear oars.”

      “Whereabouts?”

      “The night is all around us. I hear them near.”

      “Port or starboard?”

      There was a short delay in answer this time. On the quarter-deck, under the poop, bare feet shuffled. Somebody coughed. At last the voice forward said doubtfully:

      “Kanan.”

      “Call the serang, Mr. Shaw,” said Lingard, calmly, “and have the hands turned up. They are all lying about the decks. Look sharp now. There's something near us. It's annoying to be caught like this,” he added in a vexed tone.

      He crossed over to the starboard side, and stood listening, one hand grasping the royal back-stay, his ear turned to the sea, but he could hear nothing from there. The quarter-deck was filled with subdued sounds. Suddenly, a long, shrill whistle soared, reverberated loudly amongst the flat surfaces of motionless sails, and gradually grew faint as if the sound had escaped and gone away, running upon the water. Haji Wasub was on deck and ready to carry out the white man's commands. Then silence fell again on the brig, until Shaw spoke quietly.

      “I am going forward now, sir, with the tindal. We're all at stations.”

      “Aye, Mr. Shaw. Very good. Mind they don't board you—but I can hear nothing. Not a sound. It can't be much.”

      “The fellow has been dreaming, no doubt. I have good ears, too, and—”

      He went forward and the end of his sentence was lost in an indistinct growl. Lingard stood attentive. One by one the three seacannies off duty appeared on the poop and busied themselves around a big chest that stood by the side of the cabin companion. A rattle and clink of steel weapons turned out on the deck was heard, but the men did not even whisper. СКАЧАТЬ