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."