“What’s going on in that river you’ve just come out of?” asked the lieutenant straight away.
“I know nothing of the troubles, if you mean that,” Jasper answered. “I’ve landed there half a cargo of rice, for which I got nothing in exchange, and went away. There’s no trade there now, but they would have been starving in another week if I hadn’t turned up.”
“Meddling! English meddling! And suppose the rascals don’t deserve anything better than to starve, eh?”
“There are women and children there, you know,” observed Jasper, in his even tone.
“Oh, yes! When an Englishman talks of women and children, you may be sure there’s something fishy about the business. Your doings will have to be investigated.”
They spoke in turn, as though they had been disembodied spirits—mere voices in empty air; for they looked at each other as if there had been nothing there, or, at most, with as much recognition as one gives to an inanimate object, and no more. But now a silence fell, Heemskirk had thought, all at once: “She will tell him all about it. She will tell him while she hangs round his neck laughing.” And the sudden desire to annihilate Jasper on the spot almost deprived him of his senses by its vehemence. He lost the power of speech, of vision. For a moment he absolutely couldn’t see Jasper. But he heard him inquiring, as of the world at large:
“Am I, then, to conclude that the brig is detained?”
Heemskirk made a recovery in a flush of malignant satisfaction.
