The Rescue by Joseph Conrad

warriors to fall back before his rush.
    Taking instant advantage of their surprise and fear, Lingard, followed
by his men, dashed along the kind of ruinous jetty leading to the
village which was erected as usual over the water. They darted into one
of the miserable huts built of rotten mats and bits of decayed canoes,
and in this shelter showing daylight through all its sides, they
had time to draw breath and realize that their position was not much
improved.
    The women and children screaming had cleared out into the bush, while
at the shore end of the jetty the warriors capered and yelled, preparing
for a general attack. Lingard noticed with mortification that his
boat-keeper apparently had lost his head, for, instead of swimming off
to the ship to give the alarm, as he was perfectly able to do, the
man actually struck out for a small rock a hundred yards away and was
frantically trying to climb up its perpendicular side. The tide being
out, to jump into the horrible mud under the houses would have been
almost certain death. Nothing remained therefore—since the miserable
dwelling would not have withstood a vigorous kick, let alone a
siege—but to rush back on shore and regain possession of the boat. To
this Lingard made up his mind quickly and, arming himself with a crooked
stick he found under his hand, sallied forth at the head of his three
men. As he bounded along, far in advance, he had just time to perceive
clearly the desperate nature of the undertaking, when he heard two shots
fired to his right. The solid mass of black bodies and frizzly heads in
front of him wavered and broke up. They did not run away, however.
    Lingard pursued his course, but now with that thrill of exultation which
even a faint prospect of success inspires in a sanguine man. He heard a
shout of many voices far off, then there was another report of a shot,
and a musket ball fired at long range spurted a tiny jet of sand between
him and his wild enemies. His next bound would have carried him into
their midst had they awaited his onset, but his uplifted arm found
nothing to strike. Black backs were leaping high or gliding horizontally
through the grass toward the edge of the bush.
    He flung his stick at the nearest pair of black shoulders and stopped
short. The tall grasses swayed themselves into a rest, a chorus of yells
and piercing shrieks died out in a dismal howl, and all at once the
wooded shores and the blue bay seemed to fall under the spell of a
luminous stillness. The change was as startling as the awakening from a
dream. The sudden silence struck Lingard as amazing.
    He broke it by lifting his voice in a stentorian shout, which arrested
the pursuit of his men. They retired reluctantly, glaring back angrily
at the wall of a jungle where not a single leaf stirred. The strangers,
whose opportune appearance had decided the issue of that adventure, did
not attempt to join in the pursuit but halted in a compact body on the
ground lately occupied by the savages.
    Lingard and the young leader of the Wajo traders met in the 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