splendid light of noonday, and amidst the attentive silence of their followers, on the very spot where the Malay seaman had lost his life. Lingard, striding up from one side, thrust out his open palm; Hassim responded at once to the frank gesture and they exchanged their first hand-clasp over the prostrate body, as if fate had already exacted the price of a death for the most ominous of her gifts—the gift of friendship that sometimes contains the whole good or evil of a life.
“I'll never forget this day,” cried Lingard in a hearty tone; and the other smiled quietly.
Then after a short pause—“Will you burn the village for vengeance?” asked the Malay with a quick glance down at the dead Lascar who, on his face and with stretched arms, seemed to cling desperately to that earth of which he had known so little.
Lingard hesitated.
“No,” he said, at last. “It would do good to no one.”
“True,” said Hassim, gently, “but was this man your debtor—a slave?”
“Slave?” cried Lingard. “This is an English brig. Slave? No. A free man like myself.”
“Hai. He is indeed free now,” muttered the Malay with another glance downward. “But who will pay the bereaved for his life?”
“If there is anywhere a woman or child belonging to him, I—my serang would know—I shall seek them out,” cried Lingard, remorsefully.
“You speak like a chief,” said Hassim, “only our great men do not go to battle with naked hands. O you white men! O the valour of you white men!”
“It was folly, pure folly,” protested Lingard, “and this poor fellow has paid for it.”
“He could not avoid his destiny,” murmured the Malay. “It is in my mind my trading is finished now in this place,” he added, cheerfully.
Lingard expressed his regret.
“It is no matter, it is no matter,” assured the other courteously, and after Lingard had given a pressing invitation for Hassim and his two companions of high rank to visit the brig, the two parties separated.
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