Free The Rescue by Joseph Conrad Page A

although dressed
practically in man's clothes, had about her person no weapon of any
sort. Her arms hung down in exceedingly tight sleeves slit a little way
up from the wrist, gold-braided and with a row of small gold buttons.
She walked, brown and alert, all of a piece, with short steps, the eyes
lively in an impassive little face, the arched mouth closed firmly; and
her whole person breathed in its rigid grace the fiery gravity of youth
at the beginning of the task of life—at the beginning of beliefs and
hopes.
    This was the day of Lingard's arrival upon the coast, but, as is known,
the brig, delayed by the calm, did not appear in sight of the shallows
till the morning was far advanced. Disappointed in their hope to see the
expected sail shining in the first rays of the rising sun, the man and
the woman, without attempting to relight the fire, lounged on their
sleeping mats. At their feet a common canoe, hauled out of the water,
was, for more security, moored by a grass rope to the shaft of a long
spear planted firmly on the white beach, and the incoming tide lapped
monotonously against its stern.
    The girl, twisting up her black hair, fastened it with slender wooden
pins. The man, reclining at full length, had made room on his mat for
the gun—as one would do for a friend—and, supported on his elbow,
looked toward the yacht with eyes whose fixed dreaminess like a
transparent veil would show the slow passage of every gloomy thought by
deepening gradually into a sombre stare.
    "We have seen three sunrises on this islet, and no friend came from the
sea," he said without changing his attitude, with his back toward the
girl who sat on the other side of the cold embers.
    "Yes; and the moon is waning," she answered in a low voice. "The moon
is waning. Yet he promised to be here when the nights are light and the
water covers the sandbanks as far as the bushes."
    "The traveller knows the time of his setting out, but not the time of
his return," observed the man, calmly.
    The girl sighed.
    "The nights of waiting are long," she murmured.
    "And sometimes they are vain," said the man with the same composure.
"Perhaps he will never return."
    "Why?" exclaimed the girl.
    "The road is long and the heart may grow cold," was the answer in a
quiet voice. "If he does not return it is because he has forgotten."
    "Oh, Hassim, it is because he is dead," cried the girl, indignantly.
    The man, looking fixedly to seaward, smiled at the ardour of her tone.
    They were brother and sister, and though very much alike, the family
resemblance was lost in the more general traits common to the whole
race.
    They were natives of Wajo and it is a common saying amongst the Malay
race that to be a successful traveller and trader a man must have some
Wajo blood in his veins. And with those people trading, which means also
travelling afar, is a romantic and an honourable occupation. The trader
must possess an adventurous spirit and a keen understanding; he should
have the fearlessness of youth and the sagacity of age; he should be
diplomatic and courageous, so as to secure the favour of the great and
inspire fear in evil-doers.
    These qualities naturally are not expected in a shopkeeper or a Chinaman
pedlar; they are considered indispensable only for a man who, of noble
birth and perhaps related to the ruler of his own country, wanders over
the seas in a craft of his own and with many followers; carries from
island to island important news as well as merchandise; who may be
trusted with secret messages and valuable goods; a man who, in short,
is as ready to intrigue and fight as to buy and sell. Such is the ideal
trader of Wajo.
    Trading, thus understood, was the occupation of ambitious men who played
an occult but important part in all those national risings, religious
disturbances, and also in the organized piratical movements on a large
scale which, during the first half of the last century, affected the
fate of more than one native dynasty and, for a few