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Almayer fell on her knees on the bank and leaned over the gunwale so as to bring her own face close to her daughter’s.

“There will be other women,” she repeated firmly; “I tell you that, because you are half white, and may forget that he is a great chief, and that such things must be.  Hide your anger, and do not let him see on your face the pain that will eat your heart.  Meet him with joy in your eyes and wisdom on your lips, for to you he will turn in sadness or in doubt.  As long as he looks upon many women your power will last, but should there be one, one only with whom he seems to forget you, then — ”

“I could not live,” exclaimed Nina, covering her face with both her hands.  “Do not speak so, mother; it could not be.”

“Then,” went on Mrs. Almayer, steadily, “to that woman, Nina, show no mercy.”

She moved the canoe down towards the stream by the gunwale, and gripped it with both her hands, the bow pointing into the river.

“Are you crying?” she asked sternly of her daughter, who sat still with covered face.  “Arise, and take your paddle, for he has waited long enough.  And remember, Nina, no mercy; and if you must strike, strike with a steady hand.”

She put out all her strength, and swinging her body over the water, shot the light craft far into the stream.  When she recovered herself from the effort she tried vainly to catch a glimpse of the canoe that seemed to have dissolved suddenly into the white mist trailing over the heated waters of the Pantai.  After listening for a while intently on her knees, Mrs. Almayer rose with a deep sigh, while two tears wandered slowly down her withered cheeks.  She wiped them off quickly with a wisp of her grey hair as if ashamed of herself, but could not stifle another loud sigh, for her heart was heavy and she suffered much, being unused to tender emotions.  This time she fancied she had heard a faint noise, like the echo of her own sigh, and she stopped, straining her ears to catch the slightest sound, and peering apprehensively towards the bushes near her.

“Who is there?” she asked, in an unsteady voice, while her imagination peopled the solitude of the riverside with ghost-like forms.  “Who is there?” she repeated faintly.

There was no answer: only the voice of the river murmuring in sad monotone behind the white veil seemed to swell louder for a moment, to die away again in a soft whisper of eddies washing against the bank.

Mrs. Almayer shook her head as if in answer to her own thoughts, and walked quickly away from the bushes, looking to the right and left watchfully.  She went straight towards the cooking-shed, observing that the embers of the fire there glowed more brightly than usual, as if somebody had been adding fresh fuel to the fires during the evening.  As she approached, Babalatchi, who had been squatting in the warm glow, rose and met her in the shadow outside.

“Is she gone?” asked the anxious statesman, hastily.

“Yes,” answered Mrs. Almayer.  “What are the white men doing?  When did you leave them?”

“They are sleeping now, I think.  May they never wake!” exclaimed Babalatchi, fervently.  “Oh! but they are devils, and made much talk and trouble over that carcase.  The chief threatened me twice with his hand, and said he would have me tied up to a tree.  Tie me up to a tree!  Me!” he repeated, striking his breast violently.

Mrs. Almayer laughed tauntingly.

“And you salaamed and asked for mercy.  Men with arms by their side acted otherwise when I was young.”

“And where are they, the men of your youth?  You mad woman!” retorted Babalatchi, angrily.  “Killed by the Dutch.  Aha!  But I shall live to deceive them.  A man knows when to fight and when to tell peaceful lies.  You would know that if you were not a woman.”

But Mrs. Almayer did not seem to hear him.  With bent body and outstretched arm she appeared to be listening to some noise behind the shed.

“There are strange sounds,” she whispered, with evident alarm.  “I have heard in the air the sounds of grief, as of a sigh and weeping.  That was by the riverside.  And now again I heard — ”

“Where?” asked Babalatchi, in an altered voice.  “What did you hear?”

“Close here.  It was like a breath long drawn.  I wish I had burnt the paper over the body before it was buried.”

“Yes,” assented Babalatchi.  “But the white men had him thrown into a hole at once.  You know he found his death on the river,” he added cheerfully, “and his ghost may hail the canoes, but would leave the land alone.”

Mrs. Almayer, who had been craning her neck to look round the corner of the shed, drew back her head.

“There is nobody there,” she said, reassured.  “Is it not time for the Rajah war-canoe to go to the clearing?”

“I have been waiting for it here, for I myself must go,” explained Babalatchi.  “I think I will go over and see what makes them late.  When will you come?  The Rajah gives you refuge.”

“I shall paddle over before the break of day.  I cannot leave my dollars behind,” muttered Mrs. Almayer.

They separated.  Babalatchi crossed the courtyard towards the creek to get his canoe, and Mrs. Almayer walked slowly to the house, ascended the plankway, and passing through the back verandah entered the passage leading to the front of the house; but before going in she turned in the doorway and looked back at the empty and silent courtyard, now lit up by the rays of the rising moon.  No sooner she had disappeared, however, than a vague shape flitted out from amongst the stalks of the banana plantation, darted over the moonlit space, and fell in the darkness at the foot of the verandah.  It might have been the shadow of a driving cloud, so noiseless and rapid was its passage, but for the trail of disturbed grass, whose feathery heads trembled and swayed for a long time in the moonlight before they rested motionless and gleaming, like a design of silver sprays embroidered on a sombre background.

Mrs. Almayer lighted the cocoanut lamp, and lifting cautiously the red curtain, gazed upon her husband, shading the light with her hand.

Almayer, huddled up in the chair, one of his arms hanging down, the other thrown across the lower part of his face as if to ward off an invisible enemy, his legs stretched straight out, slept heavily, unconscious of the unfriendly eyes that looked upon him in disparaging criticism.  At his feet lay the overturned table, amongst a wreck of crockery and broken bottles.  The appearance as of traces left by a desperate struggle was accentuated by the chairs, which seemed to have been scattered violently all over the place, and now lay about the verandah with a lamentable aspect of inebriety in their helpless attitudes.  Only Nina’s big rocking-chair, standing black and motionless on its high runners, towered above the chaos of demoralised furniture, unflinchingly dignified and patient, waiting for its burden.

With a last scornful look towards the sleeper, Mrs. Almayer passed behind the curtain into her own room.  A couple of bats, encouraged by the darkness and the peaceful state of affairs, resumed their silent and oblique gambols above Almayer’s head, and for a long time the profound quiet of the house was unbroken, save for the deep breathing of the sleeping man and the faint tinkle of silver in the hands of the woman preparing for flight.  In the increasing light of the moon that had risen now above the night mist, the objects on the verandah came out strongly outlined in black splashes of shadow with all the uncompromising ugliness of their disorder, and a caricature of the sleeping Almayer appeared on the dirty whitewash of the wall behind him in a grotesquely exaggerated detail of attitude and feature enlarged to a heroic size.  The discontented bats departed in quest of darker places, and a lizard came out in short, nervous rushes, and, pleased with the white table-cloth, stopped on it in breathless immobility that would have suggested sudden death had it not been for the melodious call he exchanged with a less adventurous friend hiding amongst the lumber in the courtyard.  Then the boards in the passage creaked, the lizard vanished, and Almayer stirred uneasily with a sigh: slowly, out of the senseless annihilation of drunken sleep, he was returning, through the land of dreams, to waking consciousness.  Almayer’s head rolled from shoulder to shoulder in the oppression of his dream; the heavens had descended upon him like a heavy mantle, and trailed in starred folds far under him.  Stars above, stars all round him; and from the stars under his feet rose a whisper full of entreaties and tears, and sorrowful faces flitted amongst the clusters of light filling the infinite space below.  How escape from the importunity of lamentable cries and from the look of staring, sad eyes in the faces which pressed round him till he gasped for breath under the crushing weight of worlds that hung over his aching shoulders?  Get away!  But how?  If he attempted to move he would step off into nothing, and perish in the crashing fall of that universe of which he was the only support.  And what were the voices saying?  Urging him to move!  Why?  Move to destruction!  Not likely!  The absurdity of the thing filled him with indignation.  He got a firmer foothold and stiffened his muscles in heroic resolve to carry his burden to all eternity.  And ages passed in the superhuman labour, amidst the rush of circling worlds; in the plaintive murmur of sorrowful voices urging him to desist before it was too late — till the mysterious power that had laid upon him the giant task seemed at last to seek his destruction.  With terror he felt an irresistible hand shaking him by the shoulder, while the chorus of voices swelled louder into an agonised prayer to go, go before it is too late.  He felt himself slipping, losing his balance, as something dragged at his legs, and he fell.  With a faint cry he glided out of the anguish of perishing creation into an imperfect waking that seemed to be still under the spell of his dream.

“What?  What?” he murmured sleepily, without moving or opening his eyes.  His head still felt heavy, and he had not the courage to raise his eyelids.  In his ears there still lingered the sound of entreating whisper. — ”Am I awake? — Why do I hear the voices?” he argued to himself, hazily. — ”I cannot get rid of the horrible nightmare yet. — I have been very drunk. — What is that shaking me?  I am dreaming yet — I must open my eyes and be done with it.  I am only half awake, it is evident.”

He made an effort to shake off his stupor and saw a face close to his, glaring at him with staring eyeballs.  He closed his eyes again in amazed horror and sat up straight in the chair, trembling in every limb.  What was this apparition? — His own fancy, no doubt. — His nerves had been much tried the day before — and then the drink!  He would not see it again if he had the courage to look. — He would look directly. — Get a little steadier first. — So. — Now.

He looked.  The figure of a woman standing in the steely light, her hands stretched forth in a suppliant gesture, confronted him from the far-off end of the verandah; and in the space between him and the obstinate phantom floated the murmur of words that fell on his ears in a jumble of torturing sentences, the meaning of which escaped the utmost efforts of his brain.  Who spoke the Malay words?  Who ran away?  Why too late — and too late for what?  What meant those words of hate and love mixed so strangely together, the ever-recurring names falling on his ears again and again — Nina, Dain; Dain, Nina?  Dain was dead, and Nina was sleeping, unaware of the terrible experience through which he was now passing.  Was he going to be tormented for ever, sleeping or waking, and have no peace either night or day?  What was the meaning of this?

He shouted the last words aloud.  The shadowy woman seemed to shrink and recede a little from him towards the doorway, and there was a shriek.  Exasperated by the incomprehensible nature of his torment, Almayer made a rush upon the apparition, which eluded his grasp, and he brought up heavily against the wall.  Quick as lightning he turned round and pursued fiercely the mysterious figure fleeing from him with piercing shrieks that were like fuel to the flames of his anger.  Over the furniture, round the overturned table, and now he had it cornered behind Nina’s chair.  To the left, to the right they dodged, the chair rocking madly between them, she sending out shriek after shriek at every feint, and he growling meaningless curses through his hard set teeth.  “Oh! the fiendish noise that split his head and seemed to choke his breath. — It would kill him. — It must be stopped!”  An insane desire to crush that yelling thing induced him to cast himself recklessly over the chair with a desperate grab, and they came down together in a cloud of dust amongst the splintered wood.  The last shriek died out under him in a faint gurgle, and he had secured the relief of absolute silence.

He looked at the woman’s face under him.  A real woman!  He knew her.  By all that is wonderful!  Taminah!  He jumped up ashamed of his fury and stood perplexed, wiping his forehead.  The girl struggled to a kneeling posture and embraced his legs in a frenzied prayer for mercy.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, raising her.  “I shall not hurt you.  Why do you come to my house in the night?  And if you had to come, why not go behind the curtain where the women sleep?”

“The place behind the curtain is empty,” gasped Taminah, catching her breath between the words.  “There are no women in your house any more, Tuan.  I saw the old Mem go away before I tried to wake you.  I did not want your women, I wanted you.”

“Old Mem!” repeated Almayer.  “Do you mean my wife?”

She nodded her head.

“But of my daughter you are not afraid?” said Almayer.

“Have you not heard me?” she exclaimed.  “Have I not spoken for a long time when you lay there with eyes half open?  She is gone too.”

“I was asleep.  Can you not tell when a man is sleeping and when awake?”

“Sometimes,” answered Taminah in a low voice; “sometimes the spirit lingers close to a sleeping body and may hear.  I spoke a long time before I touched you, and I spoke softly for fear it would depart at a sudden noise and leave you sleeping for ever.  I took you by the shoulder only when you began to mutter words I could not understand.  Have you not heard, then, and do you know nothing?”

“Nothing of what you said.  What is it?  Tell again if you want me to know.”

He took her by the shoulder and led her unresisting to the front of the verandah into a stronger light.  She wrung her hands with such an appearance of grief that he began to be alarmed.

“Speak,” he said.  “You made noise enough to wake even dead men.  And yet nobody living came,” he added to himself in an uneasy whisper.  “Are you mute?  Speak!” he repeated.

In a rush of words which broke out after a short struggle from her trembling lips she told him the tale of Nina’s love and her own jealousy.  Several times he looked angrily into her face and told her to be silent; but he could not stop the sounds that seemed to him to run out in a hot stream, swirl about his feet, and rise in scalding waves about him, higher, higher, drowning his heart, touching his lips with a feel of molten lead, blotting out his sight in scorching vapour, closing over his head, merciless and deadly.  When she spoke of the deception as to Dain’s death of which he had been the victim only that day, he glanced again at her with terrible eyes, and made her falter for a second, but he turned away directly, and his face suddenly lost all expression in a stony stare far away over the river.  Ah! the river!  His old friend and his old enemy, speaking always with the same voice as he runs from year to year bringing fortune or disappointment happiness or pain, upon the same varying but unchanged surface of glancing currents and swirling eddies.  For many years he had listened to the passionless and soothing murmur that sometimes was the song of hope, at times the song of triumph, of encouragement; more often the whisper of consolation that spoke of better days to come.  For so many years!  So many years!  And now to the accompaniment of that murmur he listened to the slow and painful beating of his heart.  He listened attentively, wondering at the regularity of its beats.  He began to count mechanically.  One, two.  Why count?  At the next beat it must stop.  No heart could suffer so and beat so steadily for long.  Those regular strokes as of a muffled hammer that rang in his ears must stop soon.  Still beating unceasing and cruel.  No man can bear this; and is this the last, or will the next one be the last? — How much longer?  O God! how much longer?  His hand weighed heavier unconsciously on the girl’s shoulder, and she spoke the last words of her story crouching at his feet with tears of pain and shame and anger.  Was her revenge to fail her?  This white man was like a senseless stone.  Too late!  Too late!

“And you saw her go?” Almayer’s voice sounded harshly above her head.

“Did I not tell you?” she sobbed, trying to wriggle gently out from under his grip.  “Did I not tell you that I saw the witchwoman push the canoe?  I lay hidden in the grass and heard all the words.  She that we used to call the white Mem wanted to return to look at your face, but the witchwoman forbade her, and — ”

She sank lower yet on her elbow, turning half round under the downward push of the heavy hand, her face lifted up to him with spiteful eyes.

“And she obeyed,” she shouted out in a half-laugh, half-cry of pain.  “Let me go, Tuan.  Why are you angry with me?  Hasten, or you shall be too late to show your anger to the deceitful woman.”

Almayer dragged her up to her feet and looked close into her face while she struggled, turning her head away from his wild stare.

“Who sent you here to torment me?” he asked, violently.  “I do not believe you.  You lie.”

He straightened his arm suddenly and flung her across the verandah towards the doorway, where she lay immobile and silent, as if she had left her life in his grasp, a dark heap, without a sound or a stir.

“Oh!  Nina!” whispered Almayer, in a voice in which reproach and love spoke together in pained tenderness.  “Oh!  Nina!  I do not believe.”

A light draught from the river ran over the courtyard in a wave of bowing grass and, entering the verandah, touched Almayer’s forehead with its cool breath, in a caress of infinite pity.  The curtain in the women’s doorway blew out and instantly collapsed with startling helplessness.  He stared at the fluttering stuff.

“Nina!” cried Almayer.  “Where are you, Nina?”

The wind passed out of the empty house in a tremulous sigh, and all was still.

Almayer hid his face in his hands as if to shut out a loathsome sight.  When, hearing a slight rustle, he uncovered his eyes, the dark heap by the door was gone.

CHAPTER XI.

In the middle of a shadowless square of moonlight, shining on a smooth and level expanse of young rice-shoots, a little shelter-hut perched on high posts, the pile of brushwood near by and the glowing embers of a fire with a man stretched before it, seemed very small and as if lost in the pale green iridescence reflected from the ground.  On three sides of the clearing, appearing very far away in the deceptive light, the big trees of the forest, lashed together with manifold bonds by a mass of tangled creepers, looked down at the growing young life at their feet with the sombre resignation of giants that had lost faith in their strength.  And in the midst of them the merciless creepers clung to the big trunks in cable-like coils, leaped from tree to tree, hung in thorny festoons from the lower boughs, and, sending slender tendrils on high to seek out the smallest branches, carried death to their victims in an exulting riot of silent destruction.

On the fourth side, following the curve of the bank of that branch of the Pantai that formed the only access to the clearing, ran a black line of young trees, bushes, and thick second growth, unbroken save for a small gap chopped out in one place.  At that gap began the narrow footpath leading from the water’s edge to the grass-built shelter used by the night watchers when the ripening crop had to be protected from the wild pigs.  The pathway ended at the foot of the piles on which the hut was built, in a circular space covered with ashes and bits of burnt wood.  In the middle of that space, by the dim fire, lay Dain.

He turned over on his side with an impatient sigh, and, pillowing his head on his bent arm, lay quietly with his face to the dying fire.  The glowing embers shone redly in a small circle, throwing a gleam into his wide-open eyes, and at every deep breath the fine white ash of bygone fires rose in a light cloud before his parted lips, and danced away from the warm glow into the moonbeams pouring down upon Bulangi’s clearing.  His body was weary with the exertion of the past few days, his mind more weary still with the strain of solitary waiting for his fate.  Never before had he felt so helpless.  He had heard the report of the gun fired on board the launch, and he knew that his life was in untrustworthy hands, and that his enemies were very near.  During the slow hours of the afternoon he roamed about on the edge of the forest, or, hiding in the bushes, watched the creek with unquiet eyes for some sign of danger.  He feared not death, yet he desired ardently to live, for life to him was Nina.  She had promised to come, to follow him, to share his danger and his splendour.  But with her by his side he cared not for danger, and without her there could be no splendour and no joy in existence.

Crouching in his shady hiding-place, he closed his eyes, trying to evoke the gracious and charming image of the white figure that for him was the beginning and the end of life.  With eyes shut tight, his teeth hard set, he tried in a great effort of passionate will to keep his hold on that vision of supreme delight.  In vain!  His heart grew heavy as the figure of Nina faded away to be replaced by another vision this time — a vision of armed men, of angry faces, of glittering arms — and he seemed to hear the hum of excited and triumphant voices as they discovered him in his hiding-place.  Startled by the vividness of his fancy, he would open his eyes, and, leaping out into the sunlight, resume his aimless wanderings around the clearing.  As he skirted in his weary march the edge of the forest he glanced now and then into its dark shade, so enticing in its deceptive appearance of coolness, so repellent with its unrelieved gloom, where lay, entombed and rotting, countless generations of trees, and where their successors stood as if mourning, in dark green foliage, immense and helpless, awaiting their turn.  Only the parasites seemed to live there in a sinuous rush upwards into the air and sunshine, feeding on the dead and the dying alike, and crowning their victims with pink and blue flowers that gleamed amongst the boughs, incongruous and cruel, like a strident and mocking note in the solemn harmony of the doomed trees.

A man could hide there, thought Dain, as he approached a place where the creepers had been torn and hacked into an archway that might have been the beginning of a path.  As he bent down to look through he heard angry grunting, and a sounder of wild pig crashed away in the undergrowth.  An acrid smell of damp earth and of decaying leaves took him by the throat, and he drew back with a scared face, as if he had been touched by the breath of Death itself.  The very air seemed dead in there — heavy and stagnating, poisoned with the corruption of countless ages.  He went on, staggering on his way, urged by the nervous restlessness that made him feel tired yet caused him to loathe the very idea of immobility and repose.  Was he a wild man to hide in the woods and perhaps be killed there — in the darkness — where there was no room to breathe?  He would wait for his enemies in the sunlight, where he could see the sky and feel the breeze.  He knew how a Malay chief should die.  The sombre and desperate fury, that peculiar inheritance of his race, took possession of him, and he glared savagely across the clearing towards the gap in the bushes by the riverside.  They would come from there.  In imagination he saw them now.  He saw the bearded faces and the white jackets of the officers, the light on the levelled barrels of the rifles.  What is the bravery of the greatest warrior before the firearms in the hand of a slave?  He would walk toward them with a smiling face, with his hands held out in a sign of submission till he was very near them.  He would speak friendly words — come nearer yet — yet nearer — so near that they could touch him with their hands and stretch them out to make him a captive.  That would be the time: with a shout and a leap he would be in the midst of them, kriss in hand, killing, killing, killing, and would die with the shouts of his enemies in his ears, their warm blood spurting before his eyes.

Carried away by his excitement, he snatched the kriss hidden in his sarong, and, drawing a long breath, rushed forward, struck at the empty air, and fell on his face.  He lay as if stunned in the sudden reaction from his exaltation, thinking that, even if he died thus gloriously, it would have to be before he saw Nina.  Better so.  If he saw her again he felt that death would be too terrible.  With horror he, the descendant of Rajahs and of conquerors, had to face the doubt of his own bravery.  His desire of life tormented him in a paroxysm of agonising remorse.  He had not the courage to stir a limb.  He had lost faith in himself, and there was nothing else in him of what makes a man.  The suffering remained, for it is ordered that it should abide in the human body even to the last breath, and fear remained.  Dimly he could look into the depths of his passionate love, see its strength and its weakness, and felt afraid.

The sun went down slowly.  The shadow of the western forest marched over the clearing, covered the man’s scorched shoulders with its cool mantle, and went on hurriedly to mingle with the shadows of other forests on the eastern side.  The sun lingered for a while amongst the light tracery of the higher branches, as if in friendly reluctance to abandon the body stretched in the green paddy-field.  Then Dain, revived by the cool of the evening breeze, sat up and stared round him.  As he did so the sun dipped sharply, as if ashamed of being detected in a sympathising attitude, and the clearing, which during the day was all light, became suddenly all darkness, where the fire gleamed like an eye.  Dain walked slowly towards the creek, and, divesting himself of his torn sarong, his only garment, entered the water cautiously.  He had had nothing to eat that day, and had not dared show himself in daylight by the water-side to drink.  Now, as he swam silently, he swallowed a few mouthfuls of water that lapped about his lips.  This did him good, and he walked with greater confidence in himself and others as he returned towards the fire.  Had he been betrayed by Lakamba all would have been over by this.  He made up a big blaze, and while it lasted dried himself, and then lay down by the embers.  He could not sleep, but he felt a great numbness in all his limbs.  His restlessness was gone, and he was content to lay still, measuring the time by watching the stars that rose in endless succession above the forests, while the slight puffs of wind under the cloudless sky seemed to fan their twinkle into a greater brightness.  Dreamily he assured himself over and over again that she would come, till the certitude crept into his heart and filled him with a great peace.  Yes, when the next day broke, they would be together on the great blue sea that was like life — away from the forests that were like death.  He murmured the name of Nina into the silent space with a tender smile: this seemed to break the spell of stillness, and far away by the creek a frog croaked loudly as if in answer.  A chorus of loud roars and plaintive calls rose from the mud along the line of bushes.  He laughed heartily; doubtless it was their love-song.  He felt affectionate towards the frogs and listened, pleased with the noisy life near him.

When the moon peeped above the trees he felt the old impatience and the old restlessness steal over him.  Why was she so late?  True, it was a long way to come with a single paddle.  With what skill and what endurance could those small hands manage a heavy paddle!  It was very wonderful — such small hands, such soft little palms that knew how to touch his cheek with a feel lighter than the fanning of a butterfly’s wing.  Wonderful!  He lost himself lovingly in the contemplation of this tremendous mystery, and when he looked at the moon again it had risen a hand’s breadth above the trees.  Would she come?  He forced himself to lay still, overcoming the impulse to rise and rush round the clearing again.  He turned this way and that; at last, quivering with the effort, he lay on his back, and saw her face among the stars looking down on him.

The croaking of frogs suddenly ceased.  With the watchfulness of a hunted man Dain sat up, listening anxiously, and heard several splashes in the water as the frogs took rapid headers into the creek.  He knew that they had been alarmed by something, and stood up suspicious and attentive.  A slight grating noise, then the dry sound as of two pieces of wood struck against each other.  Somebody was about to land!  He took up an armful of brushwood, and, without taking his eyes from the path, held it over the embers of his fire.  He waited, undecided, and saw something gleam amongst the bushes; then a white figure came out of the shadows and seemed to float towards him in the pale light.  His heart gave a great leap and stood still, then went on shaking his frame in furious beats.  He dropped the brushwood upon the glowing coals, and had an impression of shouting her name — of rushing to meet her; yet he emitted no sound, he stirred not an inch, but he stood silent and motionless like chiselled bronze under the moonlight that streamed over his naked shoulders.  As he stood still, fighting with his breath, as if bereft of his senses by the intensity of his delight, she walked up to him with quick, resolute steps, and, with the appearance of one about to leap from a dangerous height, threw both her arms round his neck with a sudden gesture.  A small blue gleam crept amongst the dry branches, and the crackling of reviving fire was the only sound as they faced each other in the speechless emotion of that meeting; then the dry fuel caught at once, and a bright hot flame shot upwards in a blaze as high as their heads, and in its light they saw each other’s eyes.

Neither of them spoke.  He was regaining his senses in a slight tremor that ran upwards along his rigid body and hung about his trembling lips.  She drew back her head and fastened her eyes on his in one of those long looks that are a woman’s most terrible weapon; a look that is more stirring than the closest touch, and more dangerous than the thrust of a dagger, because it also whips the soul out of the body, but leaves the body alive and helpless, to be swayed here and there by the capricious tempests of passion and desire; a look that enwraps the whole body, and that penetrates into the innermost recesses of the being, bringing terrible defeat in the delirious uplifting of accomplished conquest.  It has the same meaning for the man of the forests and the sea as for the man threading the paths of the more dangerous wilderness of houses and streets.  Men that had felt in their breasts the awful exultation such a look awakens become mere things of to-day — which is paradise; forget yesterday — which was suffering; care not for to-morrow — which may be perdition.  They wish to live under that look for ever.  It is the look of woman’s surrender.

He understood, and, as if suddenly released from his invisible bonds, fell at her feet with a shout of joy, and, embracing her knees, hid his head in the folds of her dress, murmuring disjointed words of gratitude and love.  Never before had he felt so proud as now, when at the feet of that woman that half belonged to his enemies.  Her fingers played with his hair in an absent-minded caress as she stood absorbed in thought.  The thing was done.  Her mother was right.  The man was her slave.  As she glanced down at his kneeling form she felt a great pitying tenderness for that man she was used to call — even in her thoughts — the master of life.  She lifted her eyes and looked sadly at the southern heavens under which lay the path of their lives — her own, and that man’s at her feet.  Did he not say himself is that she was the light of his life?  She would be his light and his wisdom; she would be his greatness and his strength; yet hidden from the eyes of all men she would be, above all, his only and lasting weakness.  A very woman!  In the sublime vanity of her kind she was thinking already of moulding a god from the clay at her feet.  A god for others to worship.  She was content to see him as he was now, and to feel him quiver at the slightest touch of her light fingers.  And while her eyes looked sadly at the southern stars a faint smile seemed to be playing about her firm lips.  Who can tell in the fitful light of a camp fire?  It might have been a smile of triumph, or of conscious power, or of tender pity, or, perhaps, of love.

She spoke softly to him, and he rose to his feet, putting his arm round her in quiet consciousness of his ownership; she laid her head on his shoulder with a sense of defiance to all the world in the encircling protection of that arm.  He was hers with all his qualities and all his faults.  His strength and his courage, his recklessness and his daring, his simple wisdom and his savage cunning — all were hers.  As they passed together out of the red light of the fire into the silver shower of rays that fell upon the clearing he bent his head over her face, and she saw in his eyes the dreamy intoxication of boundless felicity from the close touch of her slight figure clasped to his side.  With a rhythmical swing of their bodies they walked through the light towards the outlying shadows of the forests that seemed to guard their happiness in solemn immobility.  Their forms melted in the play of light and shadow at the foot of the big trees, but the murmur of tender words lingered over the empty clearing, grew faint, and died out.  A sigh as of immense sorrow passed over the land in the last effort of the dying breeze, and in the deep silence which succeeded, the earth and the heavens were suddenly hushed up in the mournful contemplation of human love and human blindness.

They walked slowly back to the fire.  He made for her a seat out of the dry branches, and, throwing himself down at her feet, lay his head in her lap and gave himself up to the dreamy delight of the passing hour.  Their voices rose and fell, tender or animated as they spoke of their love and of their future.  She, with a few skilful words spoken from time to time, guided his thoughts, and he let his happiness flow in a stream of talk passionate and tender, grave or menacing, according to the mood which she evoked.  He spoke to her of his own island, where the gloomy forests and the muddy rivers were unknown.  He spoke of its terraced fields, of the murmuring clear rills of sparkling water that flowed down the sides of great mountains, bringing life to the land and joy to its tillers.  And he spoke also of the mountain peak that rising lonely above the belt of trees knew the secrets of the passing clouds, and was the dwelling-place of the mysterious spirit of his race, of the guardian genius of his house.  He spoke of vast horizons swept by fierce winds that whistled high above the summits of burning mountains.  He spoke of his forefathers that conquered ages ago the island of which he was to be the future ruler.  And then as, in her interest, she brought her face nearer to his, he, touching lightly the thick tresses of her long hair, felt a sudden impulse to speak to her of the sea he loved so well; and he told her of its never-ceasing voice, to which he had listened as a child, wondering at its hidden meaning that no living man has penetrated yet; of its enchanting glitter; of its senseless and capricious fury; how its surface was for ever changing, and yet always enticing, while its depths were for ever the same, cold and cruel, and full of the wisdom of destroyed life.  He told her how it held men slaves of its charm for a lifetime, and then, regardless of their devotion, swallowed them up, angry at their fear of its mystery, which it would never disclose, not even to those that loved it most.  While he talked, Nina’s head had been gradually sinking lower, and her face almost touched his now.  Her hair was over his eyes, her breath was on his forehead, her arms were about his body.  No two beings could be closer to each other, yet she guessed rather than understood the meaning of his last words that came out after a slight hesitation in a faint murmur, dying out imperceptibly into a profound and significant silence:  “The sea, O Nina, is like a woman’s heart.”

She closed his lips with a sudden kiss, and answered in a steady voice —

“But to the men that have no fear, O master of my life, the sea is ever true.”

Over their heads a film of dark, thread-like clouds, looking like immense cobwebs drifting under the stars, darkened the sky with the presage of the coming thunderstorm.  From the invisible hills the first distant rumble of thunder came in a prolonged roll which, after tossing about from hill to hill, lost itself in the forests of the Pantai.  Dain and Nina stood up, and the former looked at the sky uneasily.

“It is time for Babalatchi to be here,” he said.  “The night is more than half gone.  Our road is long, and a bullet travels quicker than the best canoe.”

“He will be here before the moon is hidden behind the clouds,” said Nina.  “I heard a splash in the water,” she added.  “Did you hear it too?”

“Alligator,” answered Dain shortly, with a careless glance towards the creek.  “The darker the night,” he continued, “the shorter will be our road, for then we could keep in the current of the main stream, but if it is light — even no more than now — we must follow the small channels of sleeping water, with nothing to help our paddles.”

“Dain,” interposed Nina, earnestly, “it was no alligator.  I heard the bushes rustling near the landing-place.”

“Yes,” said Dain, after listening awhile.  “It cannot be Babalatchi, who would come in a big war canoe, and openly.  Those that are coming, whoever they are, do not wish to make much noise.  But you have heard, and now I can see,” he went on quickly.  “It is but one man.  Stand behind me, Nina.  If he is a friend he is welcome; if he is an enemy you shall see him die.”

He laid his hand on his kriss, and awaited the approach of his unexpected visitor.  The fire was burning very low, and small clouds — precursors of the storm — crossed the face of the moon in rapid succession, and their flying shadows darkened the clearing.  He could not make out who the man might be, but he felt uneasy at the steady advance of the tall figure walking on the path with a heavy tread, and hailed it with a command to stop.  The man stopped at some little distance, and Dain expected him to speak, but all he could hear was his deep breathing.  Through a break in the flying clouds a sudden and fleeting brightness descended upon the clearing.  Before the darkness closed in again, Dain saw a hand holding some glittering object extended towards him, heard Nina’s cry of “Father!” and in an instant the girl was between him and Almayer’s revolver.  Nina’s loud cry woke up the echoes of the sleeping woods, and the three stood still as if waiting for the return of silence before they would give expression to their various feelings.  At the appearance of Nina, Almayer’s arm fell by his side, and he made a step forward.  Dain pushed the girl gently aside.

“Am I a wild beast that you should try to kill me suddenly and in the dark, Tuan Almayer?” said Dain, breaking the strained silence.  “Throw some brushwood on the fire,” he went on, speaking to Nina, “while I watch my white friend, lest harm should come to you or to me, O delight of my heart!”

Almayer ground his teeth and raised his arm again.  With a quick bound Dain was at his side: there was a short scuffle, during which one chamber of the revolver went off harmlessly, then the weapon, wrenched out of Almayer’s hand, whirled through the air and fell in the bushes.  The two men stood close together, breathing hard.  The replenished fire threw out an unsteady circle of light and shone on the terrified face of Nina, who looked at them with outstretched hands.

“Dain!” she cried out warningly, “Dain!”

He waved his hand towards her in a reassuring gesture, and, turning to Almayer, said with great courtesy —

“Now we may talk, Tuan.  It is easy to send out death, but can your wisdom recall the life?  She might have been harmed,” he continued, indicating Nina.  “Your hand shook much; for myself I was not afraid.”

“Nina!” exclaimed Almayer, “come to me at once.  What is this sudden madness?  What bewitched you?  Come to your father, and together we shall try to forget this horrible nightmare!”

He opened his arms with the certitude of clasping her to his breast in another second.  She did not move.  As it dawned upon him that she did not mean to obey he felt a deadly cold creep into his heart, and, pressing the palms of his hands to his temples, he looked down on the ground in mute despair.  Dain took Nina by the arm and led her towards her father.

“Speak to him in the language of his people,” he said.  “He is grieving — as who would not grieve at losing thee, my pearl!  Speak to him the last words he shall hear spoken by that voice, which must be very sweet to him, but is all my life to me.”

He released her, and, stepping back a few paces out of the circle of light, stood in the darkness looking at them with calm interest.  The reflection of a distant flash of lightning lit up the clouds over their heads, and was followed after a short interval by the faint rumble of thunder, which mingled with Almayer’s voice as he began to speak.

“Do you know what you are doing?  Do you know what is waiting for you if you follow that man?  Have you no pity for yourself?  Do you know that you shall be at first his plaything and then a scorned slave, a drudge, and a servant of some new fancy of that man?”

She raised her hand to stop him, and turning her head slightly, asked —

“You hear this Dain!  Is it true?”

“By all the gods!” came the impassioned answer from the darkness — ”by heaven and earth, by my head and thine I swear: this is a white man’s lie.  I have delivered my soul into your hands for ever; I breathe with your breath, I see with your eyes, I think with your mind, and I take you into my heart for ever.”

“You thief!” shouted the exasperated Almayer.

A deep silence succeeded this outburst, then the voice of Dain was heard again.

“Nay, Tuan,” he said in a gentle tone, “that is not true also.  The girl came of her own will.  I have done no more but to show her my love like a man; she heard the cry of my heart, and she came, and the dowry I have given to the woman you call your wife.”

Almayer groaned in his extremity of rage and shame.  Nina laid her hand lightly on his shoulder, and the contact, light as the touch of a falling leaf, seemed to calm him.  He spoke quickly, and in English this time.

“Tell me,” he said — ”tell me, what have they done to you, your mother and that man?  What made you give yourself up to that savage?  For he is a savage.  Between him and you there is a barrier that nothing can remove.  I can see in your eyes the look of those who commit suicide when they are mad.  You are mad.  Don’t smile.  It breaks my heart.  If I were to see you drowning before my eyes, and I without the power to help you, I could not suffer a greater torment.  Have you forgotten the teaching of so many years?”

“No,” she interrupted, “I remember it well.  I remember how it ended also.  Scorn for scorn, contempt for contempt, hate for hate.  I am not of your race.  Between your people and me there is also a barrier that nothing can remove.  You ask why I want to go, and I ask you why I should stay.”

He staggered as if struck in the face, but with a quick, unhesitating grasp she caught him by the arm and steadied him.

“Why you should stay!” he repeated slowly, in a dazed manner, and stopped short, astounded at the completeness of his misfortune.

“You told me yesterday,” she went on again, “that I could not understand or see your love for me: it is so.  How can I?  No two human beings understand each other.  They can understand but their own voices.  You wanted me to dream your dreams, to see your own visions — the visions of life amongst the white faces of those who cast me out from their midst in angry contempt.  But while you spoke I listened to the voice of my own self; then this man came, and all was still; there was only the murmur of his love.  You call him a savage!  What do you call my mother, your wife?”

“Nina!” cried Almayer, “take your eyes off my face.”

She looked down directly, but continued speaking only a little above a whisper.

“In time,” she went on, “both our voices, that man’s and mine, spoke together in a sweetness that was intelligible to our ears only.  You were speaking of gold then, but our ears were filled with the song of our love, and we did not hear you.  Then I found that we could see through each other’s eyes: that he saw things that nobody but myself and he could see.  We entered a land where no one could follow us, and least of all you.  Then I began to live.”

She paused.  Almayer sighed deeply.  With her eyes still fixed on the ground she began speaking again.

“And I mean to live.  I mean to follow him.  I have been rejected with scorn by the white people, and now I am a Malay!  He took me in his arms, he laid his life at my feet.  He is brave; he will be powerful, and I hold his bravery and his strength in my hand, and I shall make him great.  His name shall be remembered long after both our bodies are laid in the dust.  I love you no less than I did before, but I shall never leave him, for without him I cannot live.”

“If he understood what you have said,” answered Almayer, scornfully, “he must be highly flattered.  You want him as a tool for some incomprehensible ambition of yours.  Enough, Nina.  If you do not go down at once to the creek, where Ali is waiting with my canoe, I shall tell him to return to the settlement and bring the Dutch officers here.  You cannot escape from this clearing, for I have cast adrift your canoe.  If the Dutch catch this hero of yours they will hang him as sure as I stand here.  Now go.”

He made a step towards his daughter and laid hold of her by the shoulder, his other hand pointing down the path to the landing-place.

“Beware!” exclaimed Dain; “this woman belongs to me!”

Nina wrenched herself free and looked straight at Almayer’s angry face.

“No, I will not go,” she said with desperate energy.  “If he dies I shall die too!”

“You die!” said Almayer, contemptuously.  “Oh, no!  You shall live a life of lies and deception till some other vagabond comes along to sing; how did you say that?  The song of love to you!  Make up your mind quickly.”

He waited for a while, and then added meaningly —

“Shall I call out to Ali?”

“Call out,” she answered in Malay, “you that cannot be true to your own countrymen.  Only a few days ago you were selling the powder for their destruction; now you want to give up to them the man that yesterday you called your friend.  Oh, Dain,” she said, turning towards the motionless but attentive figure in the darkness, “instead of bringing you life I bring you death, for he will betray unless I leave you for ever!”

Dain came into the circle of light, and, throwing his arm around Nina’s neck, whispered in her ear — ”I can kill him where he stands, before a sound can pass his lips.  For you it is to say yes or no.  Babalatchi cannot be far now.”

He straightened himself up, taking his arm off her shoulder, and confronted Almayer, who looked at them both with an expression of concentrated fury.

“No!” she cried, clinging to Dain in wild alarm.  “No!  Kill me!  Then perhaps he will let you go.  You do not know the mind of a white man.  He would rather see me dead than standing where I am.  Forgive me, your slave, but you must not.”  She fell at his feet sobbing violently and repeating, “Kill me!  Kill me!”

“I want you alive,” said Almayer, speaking also in Malay, with sombre calmness.  “You go, or he hangs.  Will you obey?”

Dain shook Nina off, and, making a sudden lunge, struck Almayer full in the chest with the handle of his kriss, keeping the point towards himself.

“Hai, look!  It was easy for me to turn the point the other way,” he said in his even voice.  “Go, Tuan Putih,” he added with dignity.  “I give you your life, my life, and her life.  I am the slave of this woman’s desire, and she wills it so.”

There was not a glimmer of light in the sky now, and the tops of the trees were as invisible as their trunks, being lost in the mass of clouds that hung low over the woods, the clearing, and the river.

Every outline had disappeared in the intense blackness that seemed to have destroyed everything but space.  Only the fire glimmered like a star forgotten in this annihilation of all visible things, and nothing was heard after Dain ceased speaking but the sobs of Nina, whom he held in his arms, kneeling beside the fire.  Almayer stood looking down at them in gloomy thoughtfulness.  As he was opening his lips to speak they were startled by a cry of warning by the riverside, followed by the splash of many paddles and the sound of voices.

“Babalatchi!” shouted Dain, lifting up Nina as he got upon his feet quickly.

“Ada!  Ada!” came the answer from the panting statesman who ran up the path and stood amongst them.  “Run to my canoe,” he said to Dain excitedly, without taking any notice of Almayer.  “Run! we must go.  That woman has told them all!”

“What woman?” asked Dain, looking at Nina.  Just then there was only one woman in the whole world for him.

“The she-dog with white teeth; the seven times accursed slave of Bulangi.  She yelled at Abdulla’s gate till she woke up all Sambir.  Now the white officers are coming, guided by her and Reshid.  If you want to live, do not look at me, but go!”

“How do you know this?” asked Almayer.

“Oh, Tuan! what matters how I know!  I have only one eye, but I saw lights in Abdulla’s house and in his campong as we were paddling past.  I have ears, and while we lay under the bank I have heard the messengers sent out to the white men’s house.”

“Will you depart without that woman who is my daughter?” said Almayer, addressing Dain, while Babalatchi stamped with impatience, muttering, “Run!  Run at once!”

“No,” answered Dain, steadily, “I will not go; to no man will I abandon this woman.”

“Then kill me and escape yourself,” sobbed out Nina.

He clasped her close, looking at her tenderly, and whispered, “We will never part, O Nina!”

“I shall not stay here any longer,” broke in Babalatchi, angrily.  “This is great foolishness.  No woman is worth a man’s life.  I am an old man, and I know.”

He picked up his staff, and, turning to go, looked at Dain as if offering him his last chance of escape.  But Dain’s face was hidden amongst Nina’s black tresses, and he did not see this last appealing glance.

Babalatchi vanished in the darkness.  Shortly after his disappearance they heard the war canoe leave the landing-place in the swish of the numerous paddles dipped in the water together.  Almost at the same time Ali came up from the riverside, two paddles on his shoulder.

“Our canoe is hidden up the creek, Tuan Almayer,” he said, “in the dense bush where the forest comes down to the water.  I took it there because I heard from Babalatchi’s paddlers that the white men are coming here.”

“Wait for me there,” said Almayer, “but keep the canoe hidden.”

He remained silent, listening to Ali’s footsteps, then turned to Nina.

“Nina,” he said sadly, “will you have no pity for me?”

There was no answer.  She did not even turn her head, which was pressed close to Dain’s breast.

He made a movement as if to leave them and stopped.  By the dim glow of the burning-out fire he saw their two motionless figures.  The woman’s back turned to him with the long black hair streaming down over the white dress, and Dain’s calm face looking at him above her head.

“I cannot,” he muttered to himself.  After a long pause he spoke again a little lower, but in an unsteady voice, “It would be too great a disgrace.  I am a white man.”  He broke down completely there, and went on tearfully, “I am a white man, and of good family.  Very good family,” he repeated, weeping bitterly.  “It would be a disgrace . . . all over the islands, . . . the only white man on the east coast.  No, it cannot be . .