The Rescue by Joseph Conrad Read Free Book Online

breathlessly, it seemed very long.
And all at once he heard in it, for the first time, the cabin clock tick
distinctly, in pulsating beats, as though a little heart of metal behind
the dial had been started into sudden palpitation.
    "A gunboat!" shouted Lingard, suddenly, as if he had seen only in
that moment, by the light of some vivid flash of thought, all the
difficulties of the situation. "If you don't go back with me there will
be nothing left for you to go back to—very soon. Your gunboat won't
find a single ship's rib or a single corpse left for a landmark. That
she won't. It isn't a gunboat skipper you want. I am the man you
want. You don't know your luck when you see it, but I know mine, I
do—and—look here—"
    He touched Carter's chest with his forefinger, and said with a sudden
gentleness of tone:
    "I am a white man inside and out; I won't let inoffensive people—and a
woman, too—come to harm if I can help it. And if I can't help, nobody
can. You understand—nobody! There's no time for it. But I am like any
other man that is worth his salt: I won't let the end of an undertaking
go by the board while there is a chance to hold on—and it's like
this—"
    His voice was persuasive—almost caressing; he had hold now of a coat
button and tugged at it slightly as he went on in a confidential manner:
    "As it turns out, Mr. Carter, I would—in a manner of speaking—I would
as soon shoot you where you stand as let you go to raise an alarm
all over this sea about your confounded yacht. I have other lives to
consider—and friends—and promises—and—and myself, too. I shall keep
you," he concluded, sharply.
    Carter drew a long breath. On the deck above, the two men could
hear soft footfalls, short murmurs, indistinct words spoken near the
skylight. Shaw's voice rang out loudly in growling tones:
    "Furl the royals, you tindal!"
    "It's the queerest old go," muttered Carter, looking down on to the
floor. "You are a strange man. I suppose I must believe what you
say—unless you and that fat mate of yours are a couple of escaped
lunatics that got hold of a brig by some means. Why, that chap up there
wanted to pick a quarrel with me for coming aboard, and now you threaten
to shoot me rather than let me go. Not that I care much about that; for
some time or other you would get hanged for it; and you don't look like
a man that will end that way. If what you say is only half true, I ought
to get back to the yacht as quick as ever I can. It strikes me that your
coming to them will be only a small mercy, anyhow—and I may be of some
use—But this is the queerest. . . . May I go in my boat?"
    "As you like," said Lingard. "There's a rain squall coming."
    "I am in charge and will get wet along of my chaps. Give us a good long
line, Captain."
    "It's done already," said Lingard. "You seem a sensible sailorman and
can see that it would be useless to try and give me the slip."
    "For a man so ready to shoot, you seem very trustful," drawled Carter.
"If I cut adrift in a squall, I stand a pretty fair chance not to see
you again."
    "You just try," said Lingard, drily. "I have eyes in this brig, young
man, that will see your boat when you couldn't see the ship. You are of
the kind I like, but if you monkey with me I will find you—and when I
find you I will run you down as surely as I stand here."
    Carter slapped his thigh and his eyes twinkled.
    "By the Lord Harry!" he cried. "If it wasn't for the men with me, I
would try for sport. You are so cocksure about the lot you can do,
Captain. You would aggravate a saint into open mutiny."
    His easy good humour had returned; but after a short burst of laughter,
he became serious.
    "Never fear," he said, "I won't slip away. If there is to be any
throat-cutting—as you seem to hint—mine will be there, too, I promise
you, and. . . ."
    He stretched his arms out, glanced at them, shook them a little.
    "And this pair of arms to take care of it," he added, in his old,
careless drawl.
    But