Limekiller!

Doctor gave a sort of affirmative confirmatory grunt and Mrs. Doctor looked at him with birdy-bright eyes; Jack suddenly had a sort of satori that neither one of them was as ding-dong dumb as he had taken for granted: they might, in fact, know all about him and. there being very few secrets in British Hidalgo. Bathsheba. they might, satori succeeding satori, even be able to figure it out for themselves: even the Mrs. and Doctor Duckersons of this world have by now learned about That.; for all he knew, they might even be just as good at it; furthermore Jack, with a rush and a flush and a flash back to the days when he stealthily examined the palms of his hands, plus a flash and a rush to a future he did not much anticipate, but still, had a fairly clear scene of some wheat farmer and/or timber-topper confiding an Intimate Problem to Doctor and being informed, “Your subluxation of your third vertebrar is a particular source of common difficulties in your sectial activities; take yer shirt off and git up on that table…”

“Why of course, Mr. Limekuller,” said Mrs. Doctor: “We retire on the dot of mudnight and we do not retire untull the dot of mudnight. You kin call us tull then, or, like you say, later on in the morning. We are stopping at the Ruwer View Hotel, any time.”

Jack, hasting along with long strides towards the Pelican, observed that the clock on one of the cathedrals stood at ten to ten; he would just make it; there was luckily no chance of the Swing Bridge doing any Swinging at this hour: not even Governor Sir Joshua Cummings, were he suddenly to decide on a moonlight cruise, would be able to bring the bridge captains back to the capstan at this hour, and would either have to unstep his mast or forget about it: common sense suddenly told him that the Governor’s boat must be moored by Government House, downriver from the Bridge, anyway. Anyway, what was his hurry? Either Bathsheba would be late, and full of explanations involving her aunties, or, if on time, she would, if he were late, instantly involve herself in some conversation with, well, anyone: and wait for him.

His hurry was, he told himself, that he was very much in like with Bathsheba, and wanted simply very much to be with her again. And, You lying, horny, son of a bitch, he answered himself.

Coming from the side lanes to the main streets he entered a stream of human traffic perhaps even thicker than in the heat of the day; was that Bathsheba’s back he saw ahead there, two blocks awav? He would sive her a hail, and — She moved from the dimlight into the full glare of a streetlight: certainly it was Bathsheba he had seen ahead of him at least twice that afternoon, at the Swing Bridge and — walking next to her, and on the inside, as though having never heard that a gentleman walks on the outside, was certainly no gentleman: it was his back, too, whichjack had seen. vaguely he felt he knew whose, but he was after all not immensely familiar with every back in town:

He quickened (as they used to say) his steps:

But, they two evidently having turned into any one of several lanes, find them he could not.

Perhaps he had been mistaken.

He stepped into the yard and was halfway across when the bell of another cathedral began to ring. It had not yet told its full tale of ten when he had scanned every female face in the bars Bathsheba was not there.

Lots of other people there, though. Many more than usual. Ha. Of course. All the not every-night-regular faces were White tonight. Which meant that whichever battalions of the Right Royal Regiment had been off on manoeuvres in the Bush were now returned. Whooppee. He would grab Bathsheba and they would go somew'here else and have a drink or so, before — Well, he would if he could find her. He ordered a-then-and-there-drink and stood with his back to the bar and as near to the door as he could, upon an impulse so sudden he hardly realized what he wras doing, he left the bar and wras circumnavigating the block; he would find her and escort her back, thus preventing any of the Right Royal from intercepting and offering her some frightful insult, which she, unsophisticated daughter-child of this tropical Eden, might not instantly recognize as such: it was not only a damned odd-shaped block, it was a damned long block: coming back in the door of the Pelican Bar and not even giving a look to see was his drink still there, there, not there, but there, in the middle of the bar-room floor (the partition having been removed in his absence), amidst the other dancers (music by juke-box) was either Herb or Hughy or Alfy or Dicky — there were not a great number of given names in this particular mob of Licentious Soldiery (something missing from that quotation? let it wait) — dancing not precisely cheek-to-cheek, he was snugly pressed up against the fore-front of and was clutching both of Bathsheba’s buttocks in his very large hands.