Victory | Page 9

throat cut the day after tomorrow."
In the face of this passion Heyst made, with his eyebrows, a slight
motion of surprise which would not have been misplaced in a drawing-
room. Morrison's despairing reserve had broken down. He had been
wandering with a dry throat all over that miserable town of mud hovels,
silent, with no soul to turn to in his distress, and positively maddened
by his thoughts; and suddenly he had stumbled on a white man,
figuratively and actually white--for Morrison refused to accept the
racial whiteness of the Portuguese officials. He let himself go for the
mere relief of violent speech, his elbows planted on the table, his eyes
blood-shot, his voice nearly gone, the brim of his round pith hat
shading an unshaven, livid face. His white clothes, which he had not
taken off for three days, were dingy. He had already gone to the bad,
past redemption. The sight was shocking to Heyst; but he let nothing of
it appear in his hearing, concealing his impression under that
consummate good-society manner of his. Polite attention, what's due
from one gentleman listening to another, was what he showed; and, as
usual, it was catching; so that Morrison pulled himself together and
finished his narrative in a conversational tone, with a man-of-the-world
air.
"It's a villainous plot. Unluckily, one is helpless. That scoundrel

Cousinho--Andreas, you know--has been coveting the brig for years.
Naturally, I would never sell. She is not only my livelihood; she's my
life. So he has hatched this pretty little plot with the chief of the
customs. The sale, of course, will be a farce. There's no one here to bid.
He will get the brig for a song--no, not even that--a line of a song. You
have been some years now in the islands, Heyst. You know us all; you
have seen how we live. Now you shall have the opportunity to see how
some of us end; for it is the end, for me. I can't deceive myself any
longer. You see it--don't your?"
Morrison had pulled himself together, but one felt the snapping strain
on his recovered self-possession. Heyst was beginning to say that he
"could very well see all the bearings of this unfortunate--" when
Morrison interrupted him jerkily.
"Upon my word, I don't know why I have been telling you all this. I
suppose seeing a thoroughly white man made it impossible to keep my
trouble to myself. Words can't do it justice; but since I've told you so
much I may as well tell you more. Listen. This morning on board, in
my cabin I went down on my knees and prayed for help. I went down
on my knees!"
"You are a believer, Morrison?" asked Heyst with a distinct note of
respect.
"Surely I am not an infidel."
Morrison was swiftly reproachful in his answer, and there came a pause,
Morrison perhaps interrogating his conscience, and Heyst preserving a
mien of unperturbed, polite interest.
"I prayed like a child, of course. I believe in children praying-- well,
women, too, but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant.
I don't hold with a man everlastingly bothering the Almighty with his
silly troubles. It seems such cheek. Anyhow, this morning I--I have
never done any harm to any God's creature knowingly--I prayed. A
sudden impulse--I went flop on my knees; so you may judge--"

They were gazing earnestly into each other's eyes. Poor Morrison
added, as a discouraging afterthought:
"Only this is such a God-forsaken spot."
Heyst inquired with a delicate intonation whether he might know the
amount for which the brig was seized.
Morrison suppressed an oath, and named curtly a sum which was in
itself so insignificant that any other person than Heyst would have
exclaimed at it. And even Heyst could hardly keep incredulity out of
his politely modulated voice as he asked if it was a fact that Morrison
had not that amount in hand.
Morrison hadn't. He had only a little English gold, a few sovereigns, on
board. He had left all his spare cash with the Tesmans, in Samarang, to
meet certain bills which would fall due while he was away on his cruise.
Anyhow, that money would not have been any more good to him than
if it had been in the innermost depths of the infernal regions. He said all
this brusquely. He looked with sudden disfavour at that noble forehead,
at those great martial moustaches, at the tired eyes of the man sitting
opposite him. Who the devil was he? What was he, Morrison, doing
there, talking like this? Morrison knew no more of Heyst than the rest
of us trading in the Archipelago did. Had the Swede suddenly risen and
hit him on the nose, he could