'If you're as hungry as I am you'd better have a tuck in at this rice,' he said.
Campion ate voraciously, but when Izzart had taken a mouthful or two he found that he had no appetite. Campion talked and talked. Izzart listened suspiciously. He felt that he must be alert and he drank more arak. He began to feel a little drunk.
'I shall get into the devil of a row at K. S.' he said tentatively.
'I don't know why.'
'I was told off to look after you. They won't think it was very clever of me to let you get nearly drowned.'
'It wasn't your fault. It was the fault of the damned fool of a steersman. After all, the important thing is that we're saved. By George, I thought I was finished once. I shouted out to you. I don't know if you heard me.'
'No, I didn't hear anything. There was such a devil of a row, wasn't there?'
'Perhaps you'd got away before. I don't know exactly when you did get away.'
Izzart looked at him sharply. Was it his fancy that there was an odd look in Campion's eyes?
'There was such an awful confusion,' he said. 'I was just about down and out. My boy threw me over an oar. He gave me to understand you were all right. He told me you'd got ashore.'
The oar! He ought to have given Campion the oar and told Hassan, the strong swimmer, to give him his help. Was it his fancy again that Campion gave him a quick and searching glance?
'I wish I could have been of more use to you,' said Izzart.
'Oh, I'm sure you had enough to do to look after yourself,' answered Campion.
The headman brought them cups of arak, and they both drank a great deal. Izzart's head began to spin and he suggested that they should turn in. Beds had been prepared for them and mosquito nets fixed. They were to set out at dawn on the rest of their journey down the river. Campion's bed was next to his, and in a few minutes he heard him snoring. He had fallen asleep the moment he lay down. The young men of the long-house and the prisoners of the boat's crew went on talking late into the night. Izzart's head now was aching horribly and he could not think. When Hassan roused him as day broke it seemed to him that he had not slept at all. Their clothes had been washed and dried, but they were bedraggled objects as they walked along the narrow pathway to the river where the prahu was waiting for them. They rowed leisurely. The morning was lovely and the great stretch of placid water gleamed in the early light.
'By George, it's fine to be alive,' said Campion.
He was grubby and unshaved. He took long breaths, and his twisted mouth was half open with a grin. You could tell that he found the air singularly good to breathe. He was delighted with the blue sky and the sunshine and the greenness of the trees. Izzart hated him. He was sure that this morning there was a difference in his manner. He did not know what to do. He had a mind to throw himself on his mercy. He had behaved like a cad, but he was sorry, he would give anything to have the chance again, but anyone might have done what he did, and if Campion gave him away he was ruined. He could never stay in Sembulu; his name would be mud in Borneo and the Straits Settlements. If he made his confession to Campion he could surely get Campion to promise to hold his tongue. But would he keep his promise? He looked at him, a shifty little man: how could he be relied on? Izzart thought of what he had said the night before. It wasn't the truth, of course, but who could know that? At all events who could prove that he hadn't honestly thought that Campion was safe? Whatever Campion said, it was only his word against Izzart's; he could laugh and shrug his shoulders and say that Campion had lost his head and didn't know what he was talking about. Besides, it wasn't certain that Campion hadn't accepted his story; in that frightful struggle for life he could be very sure of nothing. He had a temptation to go back to the subject, but he was afraid if he did that he would excite suspicion in Campion's mind. He must hold his tongue. That was his only chance of safety. And when they got to K. S. he would get in his story first.
'I should be completely happy now,' said Campion, 'if I only had something to smoke.'
'We shall be able to get some stinkers on board.'
Campion gave a little laugh.
'Human beings are very unreasonable,' he said. 'At the first moment I was so glad to be alive that I thought of nothing else, but now I'm beginning to regret the loss of my notes and my photographs and my shaving tackle.'
Izzart formulated the thought which had lurked at the back of his mind, but which all through the night he had refused to admit into his consciousness.
'I wish to God he'd been drowned. Then I'd have been safe.'
'There she is,' cried Campion suddenly.
Izzart looked round. They were at the mouth of the river and there was the Sultan Ahmed waiting for them. Izzart's heart sank: he had forgotten that she had an English skipper and that he would have to be told the story of their adventure. What would Campion say? The skipper was called Bredon, and Izzart had met him often at Kuala Solor. He was a little bluff man, with a black moustache, and a breezy manner.
'Hurry up,' he called out to them, as they rowed up, 'I've been waiting for you since dawn.' But when they climbed on board his face fell. 'Hullo, what's the matter with you?'
'Give us a drink and you shall hear all about it,' said Campion, with his crooked grin.
'Come along.'
They sat down under the awning. On a table were glasses, a bottle of whisky and soda-water. The skipper gave an order and in a few minutes they were noisily under way.
'We were caught in the Bore,' said Izzart.
He felt he must say something. His mouth was horribly dry notwithstanding the drink.
'Were you, by Jove? You're lucky not to have been drowned. What happened?'
He addressed himself to Izzart because he knew him, but it was Campion who answered. He related the whole incident, accurately, and Izzart listened with strained attention. Campion spoke in the plural when he told the early part of the story, and then, as he came to the moment when they were thrown into the water, changed to the singular. At first it was what they had done and now it was what happened to him. He left Izzart out of it. Izzart did not know whether to be relieved or alarmed. Why did he not mention him? Was it because in that mortal struggle for life he had thought of nothing but himself or-did he know?
'And what happened to you?' said Captain Bredon, turning to Izzart.
Izzart was about to answer when Campion spoke.
'Until I got over to the other side of the river I thought he was drowned. I don't know how he got out. I expect he hardly knows himself.'
'It was touch and go,' said Izzart with a laugh.
Why had Campion said that? He caught his eye. He was sure now that there was a gleam of amusement in it. It was awful not to be certain. He was frightened. He was ashamed. He wondered if he could not so guide the conversation, either now or later, as to ask Campion whether that was the story he was going to tell in Kuala Solor. There was nothing in it to excite anyone's suspicions. But if nobody else knew, Campion knew. He could have killed him.