TO
EDWARD LANCELOT SANDERSON
"An Outcast of the
Islands" is my second novel in the absolute sense of the word; second in
conception, second in execution, second as it were in its essence. There was no
hesitation, half-formed plan, vague idea, or the vaguest reverie of anything
else between it and "Almayer's Folly." The only doubt I suffered
from, after the publication of "Almayer's Folly," was whether I
should write another line for print. Those days, now grown so dim, had their
poignant moments. Neither in my mind nor in my heart had I then given up the
sea. In truth I was clinging to it desperately, all the more desperately
because, against my will, I could not help feeling that there was something
changed in my relation to it. "Almayer's Folly," had been finished
and done with. The mood itself was gone. But it had left the memory of an
experience that, both in thought and emotion was unconnected with the sea, and
I suppose that part of my moral being which is rooted in consistency was badly
shaken. I was a victim of contrary stresses which produced a state of
immobility. I gave myself up to indolence. Since it was impossible for me to
face both ways I had elected to face nothing. The discovery of new values in
life is a very chaotic experience; there is a tremendous amount of jostling and
confusion and a momentary feeling of darkness. I let my spirit float supine
over that chaos.
A phrase of Edward
Garnett's is, as a matter of fact, responsible for this book. The first of the
friends I made for myself by my pen it was but natural that he should be the
recipient, at that time, of my confidences. One evening when we had dined
together and he had listened to the account of my perplexities (I fear he must
have been growing a little tired of them) he pointed out that there was no need
to determine my future absolutely. Then he added: "You have the style, you
have the temperament; why not write another?" I believe that as far as one
man may wish to influence another man's life Edward Garnett had a great desire
that I should go on writing. At that time, and I may say, ever afterwards, he
was always very patient and gentle with me. What strikes me most however in the
phrase quoted above which was offered to me in a tone of detachment is not its
gentleness but its effective wisdom. Had he said, "Why not go on
writing," it is very probable he would have scared me away from pen and
ink for ever; but there was nothing either to frighten one or arouse one's
antagonism in the mere suggestion to "write another." And thus a dead
point in the revolution of my affairs was insidiously got over. The word
"another" did it. At about eleven o'clock of a nice London night,
Edward and I walked along interminable streets talking of many things, and I
remember that on getting home I sat down and wrote about half a page of
"An Outcast of the Islands" before I slept. This was committing
myself definitely, I won't say to another life, but to another book. There is
apparently something in my character which will not allow me to abandon for
good any piece of work I have begun. I have laid aside many beginnings. I have
laid them aside with sorrow, with disgust, with rage, with melancholy and even
with self-contempt; but even at the worst I had an uneasy consciousness that I
would have to go back to them.
"An Outcast of the
Islands" belongs to those novels of mine that were never laid aside; and
though it brought me the qualification of "exotic writer" I don't
think the charge was at all justified. For the life of me I don't see that
there is the slightest exotic spirit in the conception or style of that novel.
It is certainly the most tropical of my eastern tales. The mere scenery got a
great hold on me as I went on, perhaps because (I may just as well confess
that) the story itself was never very near my heart. It engaged my imagination
much more than my affection. As to my feeling for Willems it was but the regard
one cannot help having for one's own creation. Obviously I could not be
indifferent to a man on whose head I had brought so much evil simply by
imagining him such as he appears in the novel--and that, too, on a very slight
foundation.
The man who suggested
Willems to me was not particularly interesting in himself. My interest was
aroused by his dependent position, his strange, dubious status of a mistrusted,
disliked, worn-out European living on the reluctant toleration of that
Settlement hidden in the heart of the forest-land, up that sombre stream which
our ship was the only white men's ship to visit. With his hollow, clean-shaved
cheeks, a heavy grey moustache and eyes without any expression whatever, clad
always in a spotless sleeping suit much befrogged in front, which left his lean
neck wholly uncovered, and with his bare feet in a pair of straw slippers, he
wandered silently amongst the houses in daylight, almost as dumb as an animal
and apparently much more homeless. I don't know what he did with himself at
night. He must have had a place, a hut, a palm-leaf shed, some sort of hovel
where he kept his razor and his change of sleeping suits. An air of futile
mystery hung over him, something not exactly
dark but obviously
ugly. The only definite statement I could extract from anybody was that it was
he who had "brought the Arabs into the river." That must have
happened many years before. But how did he bring them into the river? He could
hardly have done it in his arms like a lot of kittens. I knew that Almayer
founded the chronology of all his misfortunes on the date of that fateful
advent; and yet the very first time we dined with Almayer there was Willems
sitting at table with us in the manner of the skeleton at the feast, obviously
shunned by everybody, never addressed by any one, and for all recognition of
his existence getting now and then from Almayer a venomous glance which I
observed with great surprise. In the course of the whole evening he ventured
one single remark which I didn't catch because his articulation was imperfect,
as of a man who had forgotten how to speak. I was the only person who seemed
aware of the sound. Willems subsided. Presently he retired, pointedly
unnoticed--into the forest maybe? Its immensity was there, within three hundred
yards of the verandah, ready to swallow up anything. Almayer conversing with my
captain did not stop talking while he glared angrily at the retreating back.
Didn't that fellow bring the Arabs into the river! Nevertheless Willems turned
up next morning on Almayer's verandah. From the bridge of the steamer I could
see plainly these two, breakfasting together, tête à tête and, I suppose, in
dead silence, one with his air of being no longer interested in this world and
the other raising his eyes now and then with intense dislike.
It was clear that in
those days Willems lived on Almayer's charity. Yet on returning two months
later to Sambir I heard that he had gone on an expedition up the river in
charge of a steam-launch belonging
to the Arabs, to make
some discovery or other. On account of the strange reluctance that everyone
manifested to talk about Willems it was impossible for me to get at the rights
of that transaction. Moreover, I was a newcomer, the youngest of the company,
and, I suspect, not judged quite fit as yet for a full confidence. I was not
much concerned about that exclusion. The faint suggestion of plots and
mysteries pertaining to all matters touching Almayer's affairs amused me
vastly. Almayer was obviously very much affected. I believe he missed Willems immensely.
He wore an air of sinister preoccupation and talked confidentially with my
captain. I could catch only snatches of mumbled sentences. Then one morning as
I came along the deck to take my place at the breakfast table Almayer checked
himself in his low-toned discourse. My captain's face was perfectly
impenetrable. There was a moment of profound silence and then as if unable to
contain himself Almayer burst out in a loud vicious tone:
"One thing's
certain; if he finds anything worth having up there they will poison him like a
dog."
Disconnected though it
was, that phrase, as food for thought, was distinctly worth hearing. We left
the river three days afterwards and I never returned to Sambir; but whatever
happened to the protagonist of my Willems nobody can deny that I have recorded for
him a less squalid fate.
J. C.
1919.
WHEN he stepped off the
straight and narrow path of his peculiar honesty, it was with an inward
assertion of unflinching resolve to fall back again into the monotonous but
safe stride of virtue as soon as his little excursion into the wayside
quagmires had produced the desired effect. It was going to be a short episode
--a sentence in brackets, so to speak--in the flowing tale of his life: a thing
of no moment, to be done unwillingly, yet neatly, and to be quickly forgotten.
He imagined that he could go on afterwards looking at the sunshine, enjoying
the shade, breathing in the perfume of flowers in the small garden before his
house. He fancied that nothing would be changed, that he would be able as
heretofore to tyrannize good-humouredly over his half-caste wife, to notice
with tender contempt his pale yellow child, to patronize loftily his dark-
skinned brother-in-law, who loved pink neckties and wore patent-leather boots
on his little feet, and was so humble before the white husband of the lucky
sister. Those were the delights of his life, and he was unable to conceive that
the moral significance of any act of his could interfere with the very nature
of things, could dim the light of the sun, could destroy the perfume of the
flowers, the submission of his wife, the smile of his child, the awe-struck
respect of Leonard da Souza and of all the Da Souza family. That family's
admiration was the great luxury of his life. It rounded and completed his
existence in a perpetual assurance of unquestionable superiority. He loved to
breathe the coarse incense they offered before the shrine of the successful
white man; the man that had done them the honour to marry their daughter,
sister, cousin; the rising man sure to climb very high; the confidential clerk
of Hudig & Co. They were a numerous and an unclean crowd, living in ruined
bamboo houses, surrounded by neglected compounds, on the outskirts of Macassar.
He kept them at arm's length and even further off, perhaps, having no illusions
as to their worth. They were a half-caste, lazy lot, and he saw them as they
were--ragged, lean, unwashed, undersized men of various ages, shuffling about
aimlessly in slippers; motionless old women who looked like monstrous bags of
pink calico stuffed with shapeless lumps of fat, and deposited askew upon
decaying rattan chairs in shady corners of dusty verandahs; young women, slim
and yellow, big-eyed, long-haired, moving languidly amongst the dirt and
rubbish of their dwellings as if every step they took was going to be their
very last. He heard their shrill quarrellings, the squalling of their children,
the grunting of their pigs; he smelt the odours of the heaps of garbage in
their courtyards: and he was greatly disgusted. But he fed and clothed that
shabby multitude; those degenerate descendants of Portuguese conquerors; he was
their providence; he kept them singing his praises in the midst of their
laziness, of their dirt, of their immense and hopeless squalor: and he was
greatly delighted. They wanted much, but he could give them all they wanted
without ruining himself. In exchange he had their silent fear, their loquacious
love, their noisy veneration. It is a fine thing to be a providence, and to be
told so on every day of one's life. It gives one a feeling of enormously remote
superiority, and Willems revelled in it. He did not analyze the state of his
mind, but probably his greatest delight lay in the unexpressed but intimate
conviction that, should he close his hand, all those admiring human beings
would starve. His munificence had demoralized them. An easy task. Since he
descended amongst them and married Joanna they had lost the little aptitude and
strength for work they might have had to put forth under the stress of extreme
necessity. They lived now by the grace of his will. This was power. Willems
loved it.
In another, and perhaps
a lower plane, his days did not want for their less complex but more obvious
pleasures. He liked the simple games of skill--billiards; also games not so
simple, and calling for quite another kind of skill--poker. He had been the
aptest pupil of a steady-eyed, sententious American, who had drifted
mysteriously into Macassar from the wastes of the Pacific, and, after knocking
about for a time in the eddies of town life, had drifted out enigmatically into
the sunny solitudes of the Indian Ocean. The memory of the Californian stranger
was perpetuated in the game of poker--which became popular in the capital of
Celebes from that time--and in a powerful cocktail, the recipe for which is
transmitted--in the Kwang-tung dialect--from head boy to head boy of the
Chinese servants in the Sunda Hotel even to this day. Willems was a connoisseur
in the drink and an adept at the game. Of those accomplishments he was
moderately proud. Of the confidence reposed in him by Hudig--the master --he
was boastfully and obtrusively proud. This arose from his great benevolence,
and from an exalted sense of his duty to himself and the world at large. He
experienced that irresistible impulse to impart information which is
inseparable from gross ignorance. There is always some one thing which the
ignorant man knows, and that thing is the only thing worth knowing; it fills
the ignorant man's universe. Willems knew all about himself. On the day when,
with many misgivings, he ran away from a Dutch East-Indiaman in Samarang roads,
he had commenced that study of himself, of his own ways, of his own abilities,
of those fate-compelling qualities of his which led him toward that lucrative
position which he now filled. Being of a modest and diffident nature, his
successes amazed, almost frightened him, and ended--as he got over the
succeeding shocks of surprise--by making him ferociously conceited. He believed
in his genius and in his knowledge of the world. Others should know of it also;
for their own good and for his greater glory. All those friendly men who
slapped him on the back and greeted him noisily should have the benefit of his
example. For that he must talk. He talked to them conscientiously. In the
afternoon he expounded his theory of success over the little tables, dipping
now and then his moustache in the crushed ice of the cocktails; in the evening
he would often hold forth, cue in hand, to a young listener across the billiard
table. The billiard balls stood still as if listening also, under the vivid
brilliance of the shaded oil lamps hung low over the cloth; while away in the
shadows of the big room the Chinaman marker would lean wearily against the
wall, the blank mask of his face looking pale under the mahogany marking-
board; his eyelids dropped in the drowsy fatigue of late hours and in the
buzzing monotony of the unintelligible stream of words poured out by the white
man. In a sudden pause of the talk the game would recommence with a sharp click
and go on for a time in the flowing soft whirr and the subdued thuds as the
balls rolled zig-zagging towards the inevitably successful cannon. Through the
big windows and the open doors the salt dampness of the sea, the vague smell of
mould and flowers from the garden of the hotel drifted in and mingled with the
odour of lamp oil, growing heavier as the night advanced. The players' heads
dived into the light as they bent down for the stroke, springing back again
smartly into the greenish gloom of broad lamp-shades; the clock ticked
methodically; the unmoved Chinaman continuously repeated the score in a
lifeless voice, like a big talking doll--and Willems would win the game. With a
remark that it was getting late, and that he was a married man, he would say a
patronizing good-night and step out into the long, empty street. At that hour
its white dust was like a dazzling streak of moonlight where the eye sought
repose in the dimmer gleam of rare oil lamps. Willems walked homewards,
following the line of walls over- topped by the luxuriant vegetation of the
front gardens. The houses right and left were hidden behind the black masses of
flowering shrubs. Willems had the street to himself. He would walk in the
middle, his shadow gliding obsequiously before him. He looked down on it
complacently. The shadow of a successful man! He would be slightly dizzy with
the cocktails and with the intoxication of his own glory. As he often told
people, he came east fourteen years ago--a cabin boy. A small boy. His shadow
must have been very small at that time; he thought with a smile that he was not
aware then he had anything--even a shadow-- which he dared call his own. And
now he was looking at the shadow of the confidential clerk of Hudig & Co.
going home. How glorious! How good was life for those that were on the winning
side! He had won the game of life; also the game of billiards. He walked
faster, jingling his winnings, and thinking of the white stone days that had
marked the path of his existence. He thought of the trip to Lombok for
ponies--that first important transaction confided to him by Hudig; then he
reviewed the more important affairs: the quiet deal in opium; the illegal
traffic in gunpowder; the great affair of smuggled firearms, the difficult
business of the Rajah of Goak. He carried that last through by sheer pluck; he
had bearded the savage old ruler in his council room; he had bribed him with a
gilt glass coach, which, rumour said, was used as a hen-coop now; he had over-
persuaded him; he had bested him in every way. That was the way to get on. He
disapproved of the elementary dishonesty that dips the hand in the cash-box,
but one could evade the laws and push the principles of trade to their furthest
consequences. Some call that cheating. Those are the fools, the weak, the
contemptible. The wise, the strong, the respected, have no scruples. Where
there are scruples there can be no power. On that text he preached often to the
young men. It was his doctrine, and he, himself, was a shining example of its
truth.
Night after night he
went home thus, after a day of toil and pleasure, drunk with the sound of his
own voice celebrating his own prosperity. On his thirtieth birthday he went
home thus. He had spent in good company a nice, noisy evening, and, as he
walked along the empty street, the feeling of his own greatness grew upon him,
lifted him above the white dust of the road, and filled him with exultation and
regrets. He had not done himself justice over there in the hotel, he had not
talked enough about himself, he had not impressed his hearers enough. Never
mind. Some other time. Now he would go home and make his wife get up and listen
to him. Why should she not get up?--and mix a cocktail for him--and listen
patiently. Just so. She shall. If he wanted he could make all the Da Souza
family get up. He had only to say a word and they would all come and sit
silently in their night vestments on the hard, cold ground of his compound and
listen, as long as he wished to go on explaining to them from the top of the
stairs, how great and good he was. They would. However, his wife would do--for
to-night.
His wife! He winced
inwardly. A dismal woman with startled eyes and dolorously drooping mouth, that
would listen to him in pained wonder and mute stillness. She was used to those
night-discourses now. She had rebelled once--at the beginning. Only once. Now,
while he sprawled in the long chair and drank and talked, she would stand at
the further end of the table, her hands resting on the edge, her frightened
eyes watching his lips, without a sound, without a stir, hardly breathing, till
he dismissed her with a contemptuous: "Go to bed, dummy." She would
draw a long breath then and trail out of the room, relieved but unmoved. Nothing
could startle her, make her scold or make her cry. She did not complain, she
did not rebel. That first difference of theirs was decisive. Too decisive,
thought Willems, discontentedly. It had frightened the soul out of her body
apparently. A dismal woman! A damn'd business altogether! What the devil did he
want to go and saddle himself. . . . Ah! Well! he wanted a home, and the match
seemed to please Hudig, and Hudig gave him the bungalow, that flower-bowered
house to which he was wending his way in the cool moonlight. And he had the
worship of the Da Souza tribe. A man of his stamp could carry off anything, do
anything, aspire to anything. In another five years those white people who
attended the Sunday card- parties of the Governor would accept him--half-caste
wife and all! Hooray! He saw his shadow dart forward and wave a hat, as big as
a rum barrel, at the end of an arm several yards long. . . . Who shouted
hooray? . . . He smiled shamefacedly to himself, and, pushing his hands deep
into his pockets, walked faster with a suddenly grave face.
Behind him--to the
left--a cigar end glowed in the gateway of Mr. Vinck's front yard. Leaning
against one of the brick pillars, Mr. Vinck, the cashier of Hudig & Co.,
smoked the last cheroot of the evening. Amongst the shadows of the trimmed
bushes Mrs. Vinck crunched slowly, with measured steps, the gravel of the
circular path before the house.
"There's Willems
going home on foot--and drunk I fancy," said Mr. Vinck over his shoulder.
"I saw him jump and wave his hat."
The crunching of the
gravel stopped.
"Horrid man,"
said Mrs. Vinck, calmly. "I have heard he beats his wife."
"Oh no, my dear,
no," muttered absently Mr. Vinck, with a vague gesture. The aspect of
Willems as a wife- beater presented to him no interest. How women do misjudge!
If Willems wanted to torture his wife he would have recourse to less primitive
methods. Mr. Vinck knew Willems well, and believed him to be very able, very
smart--objectionably so. As he took the last quick draws at the stump of his cheroot,
Mr. Vinck reflected that the confidence accorded by Hudig to Willems was open,
under the circumstances, to loyal criticism from Hudig's cashier.
"He is becoming
dangerous; he knows too much. He will have to be got rid of," said Mr.
Vinck aloud. But Mrs. Vinck had gone in already, and after shaking his head he
threw away his cheroot and followed her slowly.
Willems walked on
homeward weaving the splendid web of his future. The road to greatness lay
plainly before his eyes, straight and shining, without any obstacle that he
could see. He had stepped off the path of honesty, as he understood it, but he
would soon regain it, never to leave it any more! It was a very small matter.
He would soon put it right again. Meantime his duty was not to be found out,
and he trusted in his skill, in his luck, in his well-established reputation
that would disarm suspicion if anybody dared to suspect. But nobody would dare!
True, he was conscious of a slight deterioration. He had appropriated
temporarily some of Hudig's money. A deplorable necessity. But he judged
himself with the indulgence that should be extended to the weaknesses of
genius. He would make reparation and all would be as before; nobody would be
the loser for it, and he would go on unchecked toward the brilliant goal of his
ambition.
Hudig's partner!
Before going up the
steps of his house he stood for awhile, his feet well apart, chin in hand,
contemplating mentally Hudig's future partner. A glorious occupation. He saw
him quite safe; solid as the hills; deep-- deep as an abyss; discreet as the
grave.
THE sea, perhaps
because of its saltness, roughens the outside but keeps sweet the kernel of its
servants' soul. The old sea; the sea of many years ago, whose servants were
devoted slaves and went from youth to age or to a sudden grave without needing
to open the book of life, because they could look at eternity reflected on the
element that gave the life and dealt the death. Like a beautiful and
unscrupulous woman, the sea of the past was glorious in its smiles,
irresistible in its anger, capricious, enticing, illogical, irresponsible; a
thing to love, a thing to fear. It cast a spell, it gave joy, it lulled gently
into boundless faith; then with quick and causeless anger it killed. But its
cruelty was redeemed by the charm of its inscrutable mystery, by the immensity
of its promise, by the supreme witchery of its possible favour. Strong men with
childlike hearts were faithful to it, were content to live by its grace-- to
die by its will. That was the sea before the time when the French mind set the
Egyptian muscle in motion and produced a dismal but profitable ditch. Then a
great pall of smoke sent out by countless steam- boats was spread over the
restless mirror of the Infinite. The hand of the engineer tore down the veil of
the terrible beauty in order that greedy and faithless landlubbers might pocket
dividends. The mystery was destroyed. Like all mysteries, it lived only in the
hearts of its worshippers. The hearts changed; the men changed. The once loving
and devoted servants went out armed with fire and iron, and conquering the fear
of their own hearts became a calculating crowd of cold and exacting masters.
The sea of the past was an incomparably beautiful mistress, with inscrutable face,
with cruel and promising eyes. The sea of to-day is a used-up drudge, wrinkled
and defaced by the churned-up wakes of brutal propellers, robbed of the
enslaving charm of its vastness, stripped of its beauty, of its mystery and of
its promise.
Tom Lingard was a
master, a lover, a servant of the sea. The sea took him young, fashioned him
body and soul; gave him his fierce aspect, his loud voice, his fearless eyes,
his stupidly guileless heart. Generously it gave him his absurd faith in
himself, his universal love of creation, his wide indulgence, his contemptuous
severity, his straightforward simplicity of motive and honesty of aim. Having
made him what he was, womanlike, the sea served him humbly and let him bask
unharmed in the sunshine of its terribly uncertain favour. Tom Lingard grew
rich on the sea and by the sea. He loved it with the ardent affection of a
lover, he made light of it with the assurance of perfect mastery, he feared it
with the wise fear of a brave man, and he took liberties with it as a spoiled
child might do with a paternal and good-natured ogre. He was grateful to it,
with the gratitude of an honest heart. His greatest pride lay in his profound
conviction of its faithfulness--in the deep sense of his unerring knowledge of
its treachery.
The little brig Flash
was the instrument of Lingard's fortune. They came north together--both young--
out of an Australian port, and after a very few years there was not a white man
in the islands, from Palembang to Ternate, from Ombawa to Palawan, that did not
know Captain Tom and his lucky craft. He was liked for his reckless generosity,
for his unswerving honesty, and at first was a little feared on account of his
violent temper. Very soon, however, they found him out, and the word went round
that Captain Tom's fury was less dangerous than many a man's smile. He
prospered greatly. After his first--and successful-- fight with the sea
robbers, when he rescued, as rumour had it, the yacht of some big wig from
home, somewhere down Carimata way, his great popularity began. As years went on
it grew apace. Always visiting out-of- the-way places of that part of the
world, always in search of new markets for his cargoes--not so much for profit
as for the pleasure of finding them--he soon became known to the Malays, and by
his successful recklessness in several encounters with pirates, established the
terror of his name. Those white men with whom he had business, and who
naturally were on the look-out for his weaknesses, could easily see that it was
enough to give him his Malay title to flatter him greatly. So when there was
anything to be gained by it, and sometimes out of pure and unprofitable good
nature, they would drop the ceremonious "Captain Lingard" and address
him half seriously as Rajah Laut--the King of the Sea.
He carried the name
bravely on his broad shoulders. He had carried it many years already when the
boy Willems ran barefooted on the deck of the ship Kosmopoliet IV. in Samarang
roads, looking with innocent eyes on the strange shore and objurgating his
immediate surroundings with blasphemous lips, while his childish brain worked
upon the heroic idea of running away. From the poop of the Flash Lingard saw in
the early morning the Dutch ship get lumberingly under weigh, bound for the
eastern ports. Very late in the evening of the same day he stood on the quay of
the landing canal, ready to go on board of his brig. The night was starry and
clear; the little custom-house building was shut up, and as the gharry that
brought him down disappeared up the long avenue of dusty trees leading to the
town, Lingard thought himself alone on the quay. He roused up his sleeping
boat-crew and stood waiting for them to get ready, when he felt a tug at his
coat and a thin voice said, very distinctly--
"English captain."
Lingard turned round
quickly, and what seemed to be a very lean boy jumped back with commendable
activity.
"Who are you?
Where do you spring from?" asked Lingard, in startled surprise.
From a safe distance
the boy pointed toward a cargo lighter moored to the quay.
"Been hiding
there, have you?" said Lingard. "Well, what do you want? Speak out,
confound you You did not come here to scare me to death, for fun, did
you?"
The boy tried to
explain in imperfect English, but very soon Lingard interrupted him.
"I see," he
exclaimed, "you ran away from the big ship that sailed this morning. Well,
why don't you go to your countrymen here?"
"Ship gone only a
little way--to Sourabaya. Make me go back to the ship," explained the boy.
"Best thing for
you," affirmed Lingard with conviction.
"No,"
retorted the boy; "me want stop here; not want go home. Get money here;
home no good."
"This beats all my
going a-fishing," commented the astonished Lingard. "It's money you
want? Well! well! And you were not afraid to run away, you bag of bones,
you!"
The boy intimated that
he was frightened of nothing but of being sent back to the ship. Lingard looked
at him in meditative silence.
"Come closer,"
he said at last. He took the boy by the chin, and turning up his face gave him
a searching look. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"There's not much
of you for seventeen. Are you hungry?"
"A little."
"Will you come
with me, in that brig there?"
The boy moved without a
word towards the boat and scrambled into the bows.
"Knows his
place," muttered Lingard to himself as he stepped heavily into the stern
sheets and took up the yoke lines. "Give way there."
The Malay boat crew lay
back together, and the gig sprang away from the quay heading towards the brig's
riding light.
Such was the beginning
of Willems' career.
Lingard learned in half
an hour all that there was of Willems' commonplace story. Father outdoor clerk
of some ship-broker in Rotterdam; mother dead. The boy quick in learning, but
idle in school. The straitened circumstances in the house filled with small
brothers and sisters, sufficiently clothed and fed but otherwise running wild,
while the disconsolate widower tramped about all day in a shabby overcoat and
imperfect boots on the muddy quays, and in the evening piloted wearily the
half-intoxicated foreign skippers amongst the places of cheap delights,
returning home late, sick with too much smoking and drinking--for company's
sake--with these men, who expected such attentions in the way of business. Then
the offer of the good-natured captain of Kosmopoliet IV., who was pleased to do
something for the patient and obliging fellow; young Willems' great joy, his
still greater disappointment with the sea that looked so charming from afar,
but proved so hard and exacting on closer acquaintance--and then this running
away by a sudden impulse. The boy was hopelessly at variance with the spirit of
the sea. He had an instinctive contempt for the honest simplicity of that work
which led to nothing he cared for. Lingard soon found this out. He offered to
send him home in an English ship, but the boy begged hard to be permitted to
remain. He wrote a beautiful hand, became soon perfect in English, was quick at
figures; and Lingard made him useful in that way. As he grew older his trading
instincts developed themselves astonishingly, and Lingard left him often to
trade in one island or another while he, himself, made an intermediate trip to
some out-of-the-way place. On Willems expressing a wish to that effect, Lingard
let him enter Hudig's service. He felt a little sore at that abandonment
because he had attached himself, in a way, to his protégé. Still he was proud
of him, and spoke up for him loyally. At first it was, "Smart boy
that--never make a seaman though." Then when Willems was helping in the
trading he referred to him as "that clever young fellow." Later when
Willems became the confidential agent of Hudig, employed in many a delicate
affair, the simple-hearted old seaman would point an admiring finger at his
back and whisper to whoever stood near at the moment, "Long-headed chap
that; deuced long-headed chap. Look at him. Confidential man of old Hudig. I
picked him up in a ditch, you may say, like a starved cat. Skin and bone. 'Pon
my word I did. And now he knows more than I do about island trading. Fact. I am
not joking. More than I do," he would repeat, seriously, with innocent
pride in his honest eyes.
From the safe elevation
of his commercial successes Willems patronized Lingard. He had a liking for his
benefactor, not unmixed with some disdain for the crude directness of the old
fellow's methods of conduct. There were, however, certain sides of Lingard's
character for which Willems felt a qualified respect. The talkative seaman knew
how to be silent on certain matters that to Willems were very interesting.
Besides, Lingard was rich, and that in itself was enough to compel Willems'
unwilling admiration. In his confidential chats with Hudig, Willems generally
alluded to the benevolent Englishman as the "lucky old fool" in a
very distinct tone of vexation; Hudig would grunt an unqualified assent, and
then the two would look at each other in a sudden immobility of pupils fixed by
a stare of unexpressed thought.
"You can't find
out where he gets all that india- rubber, hey Willems?" Hudig would ask at
last, turning away and bending over the papers on his desk.
"No, Mr. Hudig.
Not yet. But I am trying," was Willems' invariable reply, delivered with a
ring of regretful deprecation.
"Try! Always try!
You may try! You think yourself clever perhaps," rumbled on Hudig, without
looking up. "I have been trading with him twenty--thirty years now. The
old fox. And I have tried. Bah!"
He stretched out a
short, podgy leg and contemplated the bare instep and the grass slipper hanging
by the toes. "You can't make him drunk?" he would add, after a pause
of stertorous breathing.
"No, Mr. Hudig, I
can't really," protested Willems, earnestly.
"Well, don't try.
I know him. Don't try," advised the master, and, bending again over his
desk, his staring bloodshot eyes close to the paper, he would go on tracing
laboriously with his thick fingers the slim unsteady letters of his
correspondence, while Willems waited respectfully for his further good pleasure
before asking, with great deference--
"Any orders, Mr.
Hudig?"
"Hm! yes. Go to
Bun-Hin yourself and see the dollars of that payment counted and packed, and
have them put on board the mail-boat for Ternate. She's due here this
afternoon."
"Yes, Mr.
Hudig."
"And, look here.
If the boat is late, leave the case in Bun-Hin's godown till to-morrow. Seal it
up. Eight seals as usual. Don't take it away till the boat is here."
"No, Mr.
Hudig."
"And don't forget
about these opium cases. It's for to-night. Use my own boatmen. Transship them
from the Caroline to the Arab barque," went on the master in his hoarse
undertone. "And don't you come to me with another story of a case dropped
over- board like last time," he added, with sudden ferocity, looking up at
his confidential clerk.
"No, Mr. Hudig. I
will take care."
"That's all. Tell
that pig as you go out that if he doesn't make the punkah go a little better I
will break every bone in his body," finished up Hudig, wiping his purple
face with a red silk handkerchief nearly as big as a counterpane.
Noiselessly Willems
went out, shutting carefully behind him the little green door through which he
passed to the warehouse. Hudig, pen in hand, listened to him bullying the
punkah boy with profane violence, born of unbounded zeal for the master's
comfort, before he returned to his writing amid the rustling of papers
fluttering in the wind sent down by the punkah that waved in wide sweeps above
his head.
Willems would nod
familiarly to Mr. Vinck, who had his desk close to the little door of the
private office, and march down the warehouse with an important air. Mr.
Vinck--extreme dislike lurking in every wrinkle of his gentlemanly
countenance--would follow with his eyes the white figure flitting in the gloom
amongst the piles of bales and cases till it passed out through the big archway
into the glare of the street.
THE opportunity and the
temptation were too much for Willems, and under the pressure of sudden
necessity he abused that trust which was his pride, the perpetual sign of his
cleverness and a load too heavy for him to carry. A run of bad luck at cards,
the failure of a small speculation undertaken on his own account, an unexpected
demand for money from one or another member of the Da Souza family--and almost
before he was well aware of it he was off the path of his peculiar honesty. It
was such a faint and ill-defined track that it took him some time to find out
how far he had strayed amongst the brambles of the dangerous wilderness he had
been skirting for so many years, without any other guide than his own convenience
and that doctrine of success which he had found for himself in the book of
life--in those interesting chapters that the Devil has been permitted to write
in it, to test the sharpness of men's eyesight and the steadfastness of their
hearts. For one short, dark and solitary moment he was dismayed, but he had
that courage that will not scale heights, yet will wade bravely through the
mud--if there be no other road. He applied himself to the task of restitution,
and devoted himself to the duty of not being found out. On his thirtieth
birthday he had almost accomplished the task--and the duty had been faithfully
and cleverly performed. He saw himself safe. Again he could look hopefully
towards the goal of his legitimate ambition. Nobody would dare to suspect him,
and in a few days there would be nothing to suspect. He was elated. He did not
know that his prosperity had touched then its high-water mark, and that the
tide was already on the turn.
Two days afterwards he
knew. Mr. Vinck, hearing the rattle of the door-handle, jumped up from his
desk-- where he had been tremulously listening to the loud voices in the
private office--and buried his face in the big safe with nervous haste. For the
last time Willems passed through the little green door leading to Hudig's
sanctum, which, during the past half-hour, might have been taken--from the
fiendish noise within--for the cavern of some wild beast. Willems' troubled
eyes took in the quick impression of men and things as he came out from the
place of his humiliation. He saw the scared expression of the punkah boy; the
Chinamen tellers sitting on their heels with unmovable faces turned up blankly
towards him while their arrested hands hovered over the little piles of bright
guilders ranged on the floor; Mr. Vinck's shoulder-blades with the fleshy rims
of two red ears above. He saw the long avenue of gin cases stretching from
where he stood to the arched doorway beyond which he would be able to breathe
perhaps. A thin rope's end lay across his path and he saw it distinctly, yet
stumbled heavily over it as if it had been a bar of iron. Then he found himself
in the street at last, but could not find air enough to fill his lungs. He
walked towards his home, gasping.
As the sound of Hudig's
insults that lingered in his ears grew fainter by the lapse of time, the
feeling of shame was replaced slowly by a passion of anger against himself and
still more against the stupid concourse of circumstances that had driven him
into his idiotic indiscretion. Idiotic indiscretion; that is how he defined his
guilt to himself. Could there be anything worse from the point of view of his
undeniable cleverness? What a fatal aberration of an acute mind! He did not
recognize himself there. He must have been mad. That's it. A sudden gust of madness.
And now the work of long years was destroyed utterly. What would become of him?
Before he could answer
that question he found himself in the garden before his house, Hudig's wedding
gift. He looked at it with a vague surprise to find it there. His past was so
utterly gone from him that the dwelling which belonged to it appeared to him
incongruous standing there intact, neat, and cheerful in the sunshine of the
hot afternoon. The house was a pretty little structure all doors and windows,
surrounded on all sides by the deep verandah supported on slender columns
clothed in the green foliage of creepers, which also fringed the overhanging
eaves of the high-pitched roof. Slowly, Willems mounted the dozen steps that
led to the verandah. He paused at every step. He must tell his wife. He felt
frightened at the prospect, and his alarm dismayed him. Frightened to face her!
Nothing could give him a better measure of the greatness of the change around
him, and in him. Another man--and another life with the faith in himself gone.
He could not be worth much if he was afraid to face that woman.
He dared not enter the
house through the open door of the dining-room, but stood irresolute by the
little work-table where trailed a white piece of calico, with a needle stuck in
it, as if the work had been left hurriedly. The pink-crested cockatoo started,
on his appearance, into clumsy activity and began to climb laboriously up and
down his perch, calling "Joanna" with indistinct loudness and a
persistent screech that prolonged the last syllable of the name as if in a peal
of insane laughter. The screen in the doorway moved gently once or twice in the
breeze, and each time Willems started slightly, expecting his wife, but he
never lifted his eyes, although straining his ears for the sound of her
footsteps. Gradually he lost himself in his thoughts, in the endless
speculation as to the manner in which she would receive his news--and his
orders. In this preoccupation he almost forgot the fear of her presence. No
doubt she will cry, she will lament, she will be helpless and frightened and
passive as ever. And he would have to drag that limp weight on and on through
the darkness of a spoiled life. Horrible! Of course he could not abandon her
and the child to certain misery or possible starvation. The wife and the child
of Willems. Willems the successful, the smart; Willems the conf . . . . Pah!
And what was Willems now? Willems the. . . . He strangled the half-born
thought, and cleared his throat to stifle a groan. Ah! Won't they talk to-night
in the billiard- room--his world, where he had been first--all those men to
whom he had been so superciliously condescending. Won't they talk with
surprise, and affected regret, and grave faces, and wise nods. Some of them
owed him money, but he never pressed anybody. Not he. Willems, the prince of
good fellows, they called him. And now they will rejoice, no doubt, at his
downfall. A crowd of imbeciles. In his abasement he was yet aware of his
superiority over those fellows, who were merely honest or simply not found out
yet. A crowd of imbeciles! He shook his fist at the evoked image of his
friends, and the startled parrot fluttered its wings and shrieked in desperate
fright.
In a short glance
upwards Willems saw his wife come round the corner of the house. He lowered his
eyelids quickly, and waited silently till she came near and stood on the other
side of the little table. He would not look at her face, but he could see the
red dressing-gown he knew so well. She trailed through life in that red
dressing-gown, with its row of dirty blue bows down the front, stained, and
hooked on awry; a torn flounce at the bottom following her like a snake as she
moved languidly about, with her hair negligently caught up, and a tangled wisp
straggling untidily down her back. His gaze travelled upwards from bow to bow,
noticing those that hung only by a thread, but it did not go beyond her chin.
He looked at her lean throat, at the obtrusive collarbone visible in the
disarray of the upper part of her attire. He saw the thin arm and the bony hand
clasping the child she carried, and he felt an immense distaste for those
encumbrances of his life. He waited for her to say something, but as he felt
her eyes rest on him in unbroken silence he sighed and began to speak.
It was a hard task. He
spoke slowly, lingering amongst the memories of this early life in his
reluctance to confess that this was the end of it and the beginning of a less
splendid existence. In his conviction of having made her happiness in the full satisfaction
of all material wants he never doubted for a moment that she was ready to keep
him company on no matter how hard and stony a road. He was not elated by this
certitude. He had married her to please Hudig, and the greatness of his
sacrifice ought to have made her happy without any further exertion on his
part. She had years of glory as Willems' wife, and years of comfort, of loyal
care, and of such tenderness as she deserved. He had guarded her carefully from
any bodily hurt; and of any other suffering he had no conception. The assertion
of his superiority was only another benefit conferred on her. All this was a
matter of course, but he told her all this so as to bring vividly before her
the greatness of her loss. She was so dull of understanding that she would not
grasp it else. And now it was at an end. They would have to go. Leave this
house, leave this island, go far away where he was unknown. To the English
Strait-Settlements perhaps. He would find an opening there for his
abilities--and juster men to deal with than old Hudig. He laughed bitterly.
"You have the
money I left at home this morning, Joanna?" he asked. "We will want
it all now."
As he spoke those words
he thought he was a fine fellow. Nothing new that. Still, he surpassed there
his own expectations. Hang it all, there are sacred things in life, after all.
The marriage tie was one of them, and he was not the man to break it. The
solidity of his principles caused him great satisfaction, but he did not care
to look at his wife, for all that. He waited for her to speak. Then he would
have to console her; tell her not to be a crying fool; to get ready to go. Go
where? How? When? He shook his head. They must leave at once; that was the
principal thing. He felt a sudden need to hurry up his departure.
"Well,
Joanna," he said, a little impatiently--- "don't stand there in a
trance. Do you hear? We must. . . ."
He looked up at his
wife, and whatever he was going to add remained unspoken. She was staring at
him with her big, slanting eyes, that seemed to him twice their natural size.
The child, its dirty little face pressed to its mother's shoulder, was sleeping
peacefully. The deep silence of the house was not broken, but rather
accentuated, by the low mutter of the cockatoo, now very still on its perch. As
Willems was looking at Joanna her upper lip was drawn up on one side, giving to
her melancholy face a vicious expression altogether new to his experience. He
stepped back in his surprise.
"Oh! You great
man!" she said distinctly, but in a voice that was hardly above a whisper.
Those words, and still
more her tone, stunned him as if somebody had fired a gun close to his ear. He
stared back at her stupidly.
"Oh! you great
man!" she repeated slowly, glancing right and left as if meditating a
sudden escape. "And you think that I am going to starve with you. You are
nobody now. You think my mamma and Leonard would let me go away? And with you!
With you," she repeated scornfully, raising her voice, which woke up the
child and caused it to whimper feebly.
"Joanna!"
exclaimed Willems.
"Do not speak to
me. I have heard what I have waited for all these years. You are less than
dirt, you that have wiped your feet on me. I have waited for this. I am not
afraid now. I do not want you; do not come near me. Ah-h!" she screamed
shrilly, as he held out his hand in an entreating gesture-- "Ah! Keep off
me! Keep off me! Keep off!"
She backed away,
looking at him with eyes both angry and frightened. Willems stared motionless,
in dumb amazement at the mystery of anger and revolt in the head of his wife.
Why? What had he ever done to her? This was the day of injustice indeed. First
Hudig --and now his wife. He felt a terror at this hate that had lived
stealthily so near him for years. He tried to speak, but she shrieked again,
and it was like a needle through his heart. Again he raised his hand.
"Help!"
called Mrs. Willems, in a piercing voice. "Help!"
"Be quiet! You
fool!" shouted Willems, trying to drown the noise of his wife and child in
his own angry accents and rattling violently the little zinc table in his
exasperation.
From under the house,
where there were bathrooms and a tool closet, appeared Leonard, a rusty iron
bar in his hand. He called threateningly from the bottom of the stairs.
"Do not hurt her,
Mr. Willems. You are a savage. Not at all like we, whites."
"You too!"
said the bewildered Willems. "I haven't touched her. Is this a madhouse?"
He moved towards the stairs, and Leonard dropped the bar with a clang and made
for the gate of the compound. Willems turned back to his wife.
"So you expected
this," he said. "It is a conspiracy. Who's that sobbing and groaning
in the room? Some more of your precious family. Hey?"
She was more calm now,
and putting hastily the crying child in the big chair walked towards him with
sudden fearlessness.
"My mother,"
she said, "my mother who came to defend me from you--man from nowhere; a
vagabond!"
"You did not call
me a vagabond when you hung round my neck--before we were married," said
Willems, contemptuously.
"You took good
care that I should not hang round your neck after we were," she answered,
clenching her hands, and putting her face close to his. "You boasted while
I suffered and said nothing. What has become of your greatness; of our
greatness--you were always speaking about? Now I am going to live on the
charity of your master. Yes. That is true. He sent Leonard to tell me so. And
you will go and boast somewhere else, and starve. So! Ah! I can breathe now!
This house is mine."
"Enough!"
said Willems, slowly, with an arresting gesture.
She leaped back, the
fright again in her eyes, snatched up the child, pressed it to her breast, and,
falling into a chair, drummed insanely with her heels on the resounding floor
of the verandah.
"I shall go,"
said Willems, steadily. "I thank you. For the first time in your life you
make me happy. You were a stone round my neck; you understand. I did not mean
to tell you that as long as you lived, but you made me--now. Before I pass this
gate you shall be gone from my mind. You made it very easy. I thank you."
He turned and went down
the steps without giving her a glance, while she sat upright and quiet, with
wide-open eyes, the child crying querulously in her arms. At the gate he came
suddenly upon Leonard, who had been dodging about there and failed to get out
of the way in time.
"Do not be brutal,
Mr. Willems," said Leonard, hurriedly. "It is unbecoming between
white men with all those natives looking on." Leonard's legs trembled very
much, and his voice wavered between high and low tones without any attempt at
control on his part. "Restrain your improper violence," he went on
mumbling rapidly. "I am a respectable man of very good family, while you .
. . it is regrettable . . . they all say so . . ."
"What?"
thundered Willems. He felt a sudden impulse of mad anger, and before he knew
what had happened he was looking at Leonard da Souza rolling in the dust at his
feet. He stepped over his prostrate brother-in-law and tore blindly down the
street, everybody making way for the frantic white man.
When he came to himself
he was beyond the outskirts of the town, stumbling on the hard and cracked
earth of reaped rice fields. How did he get there? It was dark. He must get
back. As he walked towards the town slowly, his mind reviewed the events of the
day and he felt a sense of bitter loneliness. His wife had turned him out of
his own house. He had assaulted brutally his brother-in-law, a member of the Da
Souza family--of that band of his worshippers. He did. Well, no! It was some
other man. Another man was coming back. A man without a past, without a future,
yet full of pain and shame and anger. He stopped and looked round. A dog or two
glided across the empty street and rushed past him with a frightened snarl. He
was now in the midst of the Malay quarter whose bamboo houses, hidden in the
verdure of their little gardens, were dark and silent. Men, women and children
slept in there. Human beings. Would he ever sleep, and where? He felt as if he
was the outcast of all mankind, and as he looked hopelessly round, before
resuming his weary march, it seemed to him that the world was bigger, the night
more vast and more black; but he went on doggedly with his head down as if
pushing his way through some thick brambles. Then suddenly he felt planks under
his feet and, looking up, saw the red light at the end of the jetty. He walked
quite to the end and stood leaning against the post, under the lamp, looking at
the roadstead where two vessels at anchor swayed their slender rigging amongst
the stars. The end of the jetty; and here in one step more the end of life; the
end of everything. Better so. What else could he do? Nothing ever comes back.
He saw it clearly. The respect and admiration of them all, the old habits and
old affections finished abruptly in the clear perception of the cause of his
disgrace. He saw all this; and for a time he came out of himself, out of his
selfishness--out of the constant preoccupation of his interests and his
desires--out of the temple of self and the concentration of personal thought.
His thoughts now
wandered home. Standing in the tepid stillness of a starry tropical night he
felt the breath of the bitter east wind, he saw the high and narrow fronts of
tall houses under the gloom of a clouded sky; and on muddy quays he saw the
shabby, high-shouldered figure--the patient, faded face of the weary man
earning bread for the children that waited for him in a dingy home. It was
miserable, miserable. But it would never come back. What was there in common
between those things and Willems the clever, Willems the successful. He had cut
himself adrift from that home many years ago. Better for him then. Better for
them now. All this was gone, never to come back again; and suddenly he
shivered, seeing himself alone in the presence of unknown and terrible dangers.
For the first time in
his life he felt afraid of the future, because he had lost his faith, the faith
in his own success. And he had destroyed it foolishly with his own hands!
HIS meditation which
resembled slow drifting into suicide was interrupted by Lingard, who, with a
loud "I've got you at last!" dropped his hand heavily on Willems'
shoulder. This time it was the old seaman himself going out of his way to pick
up the uninteresting waif--all that there was left of that sudden and sordid
shipwreck. To Willems, the rough, friendly voice was a quick and fleeting
relief followed by a sharper pang of anger and unavailing regret. That voice
carried him back to the beginning of his promising career, the end of which was
very visible now from the jetty where they both stood. He shook himself free
from the friendly grasp, saying with ready bitterness--
"It's all your
fault. Give me a push now, do, and send me over. I have been standing here
waiting for help. You are the man--of all men. You helped at the beginning; you
ought to have a hand in the end."
"I have better use
for you than to throw you to the fishes," said Lingard, seriously, taking
Willems by the arm and forcing him gently to walk up the jetty. "I have
been buzzing over this town like a bluebottle fly, looking for you high and
low. I have heard a lot. I will tell you what, Willems; you are no saint,
that's a fact. And you have not been overwise either. I am not throwing
stones," he added, hastily, as Willems made an effort to get away,
"but I am not going to mince matters. Never could! You keep quiet while I
talk. Can't you?"
With a gesture of
resignation and a half-stifled groan Willems submitted to the stronger will,
and the two men paced slowly up and down the resounding planks, while Lingard
disclosed to Willems the exact manner of his undoing. After the first shock
Willems lost the faculty of surprise in the over-powering feeling of
indignation. So it was Vinck and Leonard who had served him so. They had
watched him, tracked his misdeeds, reported them to Hudig. They had bribed
obscure Chinamen, wormed out confidences from tipsy skippers, got at various
boatmen, and had pieced out in that way the story of his irregularities. The
blackness of this dark intrigue filled him with horror. He could understand
Vinck. There was no love lost between them. But Leonard! Leonard!
"Why, Captain
Lingard," he burst out, "the fellow licked my boots."
"Yes, yes,
yes," said Lingard, testily, "we know that, and you did your best to
cram your boot down his throat. No man likes that, my boy."
"I was always
giving money to all that hungry lot," went on Willems, passionately.
"Always my hand in my pocket. They never had to ask twice."
"Just so. Your
generosity frightened them. They asked themselves where all that came from, and
concluded that it was safer to throw you overboard. After all, Hudig is a much
greater man than you, my friend, and they have a claim on him also."
"What do you mean,
Captain Lingard?"
"What do I
mean?" repeated Lingard, slowly. "Why, you are not going to make me
believe you did not know your wife was Hudig's daughter. Come now!"
Willems stopped
suddenly and swayed about.
"Ah! I
understand," he gasped. "I never heard . . . Lately I thought there
was . . . But no, I never guessed."
"Oh, you
simpleton!" said Lingard, pityingly. "'Pon my word," he muttered
to himself, "I don't believe the fellow knew. Well! well! Steady now. Pull
yourself together. What's wrong there. She is a good wife to you."
"Excellent
wife," said Willems, in a dreary voice, looking far over the black and
scintillating water.
"Very well
then," went on Lingard, with increasing friendliness. "Nothing wrong
there. But did you really think that Hudig was marrying you off and giving you
a house and I don't know what, out of love for you?"
"I had served him
well," answered Willems. "How well, you know yourself--through thick
and thin. No matter what work and what risk, I was always there; always
ready."
How well he saw the
greatness of his work and the immensity of that injustice which was his reward.
She was that man's daughter! In the light of this disclosure the facts of the
last five years of his life stood clearly revealed in their full meaning. He
had spoken first to Joanna at the gate of their dwelling as he went to his work
in the brilliant flush of the early morning, when women and flowers are
charming even to the dullest eyes. A most respectable family--two women and a
young man--were his next-door neigh- bours. Nobody ever came to their little
house but the priest, a native from the Spanish islands, now and then. The
young man Leonard he had met in town, and was flattered by the little fellow's
immense respect for the great Willems. He let him bring chairs, call the
waiters, chalk his cues when playing billiards, express his admiration in
choice words. He even condescended to listen patiently to Leonard's allusions
to "our beloved father," a man of official position, a government agent
in Koti, where he died of cholera, alas! a victim to duty, like a good
Catholic, and a good man. It sounded very respectable, and Willems approved of
those feeling references. Moreover, he prided himself upon having no
colour-prejudices and no racial antipathies. He consented to drink curaçoa one
afternoon on the verandah of Mrs. da Souza's house. He remembered Joanna that
day, swinging in a hammock. She was untidy even then, he remembered, and that
was the only impression he carried away from that visit. He had no time for
love in those glorious days, no time even for a passing fancy, but gradually he
fell into the habit of calling almost every day at that little house where he
was greeted by Mrs. da Souza's shrill voice screaming for Joanna to come and
entertain the gentleman from Hudig & Co. And then the sudden and unexpected
visit of the priest. He remembered the man's flat, yellow face, his thin legs,
his propitiatory smile, his beaming black eyes, his conciliating manner, his
veiled hints which he did not understand at the time. How he wondered what the
man wanted, and how unceremoniously he got rid of him. And then came vividly
into his recollection the morning when he met again that fellow coming out of
Hudig's office, and how he was amused at the incongruous visit. And that
morning with Hudig! Would he ever forget it? Would he ever forget his surprise
as the master, instead of plunging at once into business, looked at him
thoughtfully before turning, with a furtive smile, to the papers on the desk?
He could hear him now, his nose in the paper before him, dropping astonishing
words in the intervals of wheezy breathing.
"Heard said . . .
called there often . . . most respectable ladies . . . knew the father very
well . . . estimable . . . best thing for a young man . . . settle down. . . .
Person- ally, very glad to hear . . . thing arranged. . . . Suitable
recognition of valuable services. . . . Best thing--best thing to do."
And he believed! What
credulity! What an ass! Hudig knew the father! Rather. And so did everybody
else probably; all except himself. How proud he had been of Hudig's benevolent
interest in his fate! How proud he was when invited by Hudig to stay with him
at his little house in the country--where he could meet men, men of official
position--as a friend. Vinck had been green with envy. Oh, yes! He had believed
in the best thing, and took the girl like a gift of fortune. How he boasted to
Hudig of being free from prejudices. The old scoundrel must have been laughing
in his sleeve at his fool of a confidential clerk. He took the girl, guessing
nothing. How could he? There had been a father of some kind to the common
knowledge. Men knew him; spoke about him. A lank man of hopelessly mixed
descent, but otherwise--apparently--unobjectionable. The shady relations came
out afterward, but--with his freedom from prejudices--he did not mind them,
because, with their humble dependence, they completed his triumphant life.
Taken in! taken in! Hudig had found an easy way to provide for the begging
crowd. He had shifted the burden of his youthful vagaries on to the shoulders
of his confidential clerk; and while he worked for the master, the master had
cheated him; had stolen his very self from him. He was married. He belonged to
that woman, no matter what she might do! . . . Had sworn . . . for all life! .
. . Thrown himself away. . . . And that man dared this very morning call him a
thief! Damnation!
"Let go,
Lingard!" he shouted, trying to get away by a sudden jerk from the
watchful old seaman. "Let me go and kill that . . ."
"No you
don't!" panted Lingard, hanging on manfully. "You want to kill, do
you? You lunatic. Ah!--I've got you now! Be quiet, I say!"
They struggled
violently, Lingard forcing Willems slowly towards the guard-rail. Under their
feet the jetty sounded like a drum in the quiet night. On the shore end the
native caretaker of the wharf watched the combat, squatting behind the safe
shelter of some big cases. The next day he informed his friends, with calm
satisfaction, that two drunken white men had fought on the jetty. It had been a
great fight. They fought without arms, like wild beasts, after the manner of
white men. No! nobody was killed, or there would have been trouble and a report
to make. How could he know why they fought? White men have no reason when they
are like that.
Just as Lingard was
beginning to fear that he would be unable to restrain much longer the violence
of the younger man, he felt Willems' muscles relaxing, and took advantage of
this opportunity to pin him, by a last effort, to the rail. They both panted
heavily, speechless, their faces very close.
"All right,"
muttered Willems at last. "Don't break my back over this infernal rail. I
will be quiet."
"Now you are
reasonable," said Lingard, much relieved. "What made you fly into
that passion?" he asked, leading him back to the end of the jetty, and,
still holding him prudently with one hand, he fumbled with the other for his
whistle and blew a shrill and prolonged blast. Over the smooth water of the roadstead
came in answer a faint cry from one of the ships at anchor.
"My boat will be
here directly," said Lingard. "Think of what you are going to do. I
sail to-night."
"What is there for
me to do, except one thing?" said Willems, gloomily.
"Look here,"
said Lingard; "I picked you up as a boy, and consider myself responsible
for you in a way. You took your life into your own hands many years ago --but
still . . ."
He paused, listening,
till he heard the regular grind of the oars in the rowlocks of the approaching
boat then went on again.
"I have made it
all right with Hudig. You owe him nothing now. Go back to your wife. She is a
good woman. Go back to her."
"Why, Captain
Lingard," exclaimed Willems, she . . ."
"It was most
affecting," went on Lingard, without heeding him. "I went to your
house to look for you and there I saw her despair. It was heart-breaking. She
called for you; she entreated me to find you. She spoke wildly, poor woman, as
if all this was her fault."
Willems listened amazed.
The blind old idiot! How queerly he misunderstood! But if it was true, if it
was even true, the very idea of seeing her filled his soul with intense
loathing. He did not break his oath, but he would not go back to her. Let hers
be the sin of that separation; of the sacred bond broken. He revelled in the
extreme purity of his heart, and he would not go back to her. Let her come back
to him. He had the comfortable conviction that he would never see her again,
and that through her own fault only. In this conviction he told himself
solemnly that if she would come to him he would receive her with generous
forgiveness, because such was the praiseworthy solidity of his principles. But
he hesitated whether he would or would not disclose to Lingard the revolting completeness
of his humiliation. Turned out of his house-- and by his wife; that woman who
hardly dared to breathe in his presence, yesterday. He remained perplexed and
silent. No. He lacked the courage to tell the ignoble story.
As the boat of the brig
appeared suddenly on the black water close to the jetty, Lingard broke the
painful silence.
"I always
thought," he said, sadly, "I always thought you were somewhat
heartless, Willems, and apt to cast adrift those that thought most of you. I
appeal to what is best in you; do not abandon that woman."
"I have not
abandoned her," answered Willems, quickly, with conscious truthfulness.
"Why should I? As you so justly observed, she has been a good wife to me.
A very good, quiet, obedient, loving wife, and I love her as much as she loves
me. Every bit. But as to going back now, to that place where I . . . To walk
again amongst those men who yesterday were ready to crawl before me, and then
feel on my back the sting of their pitying or satisfied smiles--no! I can't. I
would rather hide from them at the bottom of the sea," he went on, with
resolute energy. "I don't think, Captain Lingard," he added, more
quietly, "I don't think that you realize what my position was there."
In a wide sweep of his
hand he took in the sleeping shore from north to south, as if wishing it a
proud and threatening good-bye. For a short moment he forgot his downfall in
the recollection of his brilliant triumphs. Amongst the men of his class and occupation
who slept in those dark houses he had been indeed the first.
"It is hard,"
muttered Lingard, pensively. "But whose the fault? Whose the fault?"
"Captain
Lingard!" cried Willems, under the sudden impulse of a felicitous
inspiration, "if you leave me here on this jetty--it's murder. I shall
never return to that place alive, wife or no wife. You may just as well cut my
throat at once."
The old seaman started.
"Don't try to
frighten me, Willems," he said, with great severity, and paused.
Above the accents of
Willems' brazen despair he heard, with considerable uneasiness, the whisper of
his own absurd conscience. He meditated for awhile with an irresolute air.
"I could tell you
to go and drown yourself, and be damned to you," he said, with an unsuccessful
assump- tion of brutality in his manner, "but I won't. We are responsible
for one another--worse luck. I am almost ashamed of myself, but I can
understand your dirty pride. I can! By . . ."
He broke off with a
loud sigh and walked briskly to the steps, at the bottom of which lay his boat,
rising and falling gently on the slight and invisible swell.
"Below there! Got
a lamp in the boat? Well, light it and bring it up, one of you. Hurry
now!"
He tore out a page of
his pocketbook, moistened his pencil with great energy and waited, stamping his
feet impatiently.
"I will see this
thing through," he muttered to himself. "And I will have it all
square and ship-shape; see if I don't! Are you going to bring that lamp, you
son of a crippled mud-turtle? I am waiting."
The gleam of the light
on the paper placated his professional anger, and he wrote rapidly, the final
dash of his signature curling the paper up in a triangular tear.
"Take that to this
white Tuan's house. I will send the boat back for you in half an hour."
The coxswain raised his
lamp deliberately to Willem's face.
"This Tuan? Tau! I
know."
"Quick then!"
said Lingard, taking the lamp from him--and the man went off at a run.
"Kassi mem! To the
lady herself," called Lingard after him.
Then, when the man
disappeared, he turned to Willems.
"I have written to
your wife," he said. "If you do not return for good, you do not go
back to that house only for another parting. You must come as you stand. I
won't have that poor woman tormented. I will see to it that you are not
separated for long. Trust me!"
Willems shivered, then
smiled in the darkness.
"No fear of
that," he muttered, enigmatically. "I trust you implicitly, Captain
Lingard," he added, in a louder tone.
Lingard led the way
down the steps, swinging the lamp and speaking over his shoulder.
"It is the second
time, Willems, I take you in hand. Mind it is the last. The second time; and
the only difference between then and now is that you were bare- footed then and
have boots now. In fourteen years. With all your smartness! A poor result that.
A very poor result."
He stood for awhile on
the lowest platform of the steps, the light of the lamp falling on the upturned
face of the stroke oar, who held the gunwale of the boat close alongside, ready
for the captain to step in.
"You see," he
went on, argumentatively, fumbling about the top of the lamp, "you got
yourself so crooked amongst those 'longshore quill-drivers that you could not
run clear in any way. That's what comes of such talk as yours, and of such a
life. A man sees so much falsehood that he begins to lie to himself. Pah!"
he said, in disgust, "there's only one place for an honest man. The sea,
my boy, the sea! But you never would; didn't think there was enough money in
it; and now-- look!"
He blew the light out,
and, stepping into the boat, stretched quickly his hand towards Willems, with
friendly care. Willems sat by him in silence, and the boat shoved off, sweeping
in a wide circle towards the brig.
"Your compassion
is all for my wife, Captain Lingard," said Willems, moodily. "Do you
think I am so very happy?"
"No! no!"
said Lingard, heartily. "Not a word more shall pass my lips. I had to
speak my mind once, seeing that I knew you from a child, so to speak. And now I
shall forget; but you are young yet. Life is very long," he went on, with
unconscious sadness; "let this be a lesson to you."
He laid his hand
affectionately on Willems' shoulder, and they both sat silent till the boat
came alongside the ship's ladder.
When on board Lingard
gave orders to his mate, and leading Willems on the poop, sat on the breech of
one of the brass six-pounders with which his vessel was armed. The boat went
off again to bring back the messenger. As soon as it was seen returning dark
forms appeared on the brig's spars; then the sails fell in festoons with a
swish of their heavy folds, and hung motionless under the yards in the dead
calm of the clear and dewy night. From the forward end came the clink of the
windlass, and soon afterwards the hail of the chief mate informing Lingard that
the cable was hove short.
"Hold on
everything," hailed back Lingard; "we must wait for the land-breeze
before we let go our hold of the ground."
He approached Willems,
who sat on the skylight, his body bent down, his head low, and his hands
hanging listlessly between his knees.
"I am going to
take you to Sambir," he said. "You've never heard of the place, have
you? Well, it's up that river of mine about which people talk so much and know
so little. I've found out the entrance for a ship of Flash's size. It isn't
easy. You'll see. I will show you. You have been at sea long enough to take an
interest. . . . Pity you didn't stick to it. Well, I am going there. I have my
own trading post in the place. Almayer is my partner. You knew him when he was
at Hudig's. Oh, he lives there as happy as a king. D'ye see, I have them all in
my pocket. The rajah is an old friend of mine. My word is law--and I am the
only trader. No other white man but Almayer had ever been in that settlement.
You will live quietly there till I come back from my next cruise to the
westward. We shall see then what can be done for you. Never fear. I have no
doubt my secret will be safe with you. Keep mum about my river when you get
amongst the traders again. There's many would give their ears for the knowledge
of it. I'll tell you something: that's where I get all my guttah and rattans.
Simply inexhaustible, my boy."
While Lingard spoke
Willems looked up quickly, but soon his head fell on his breast in the
discouraging certitude that the knowledge he and Hudig had wished for so much
had come to him too late. He sat in a listless attitude.
"You will help
Almayer in his trading if you have a heart for it," continued Lingard,
"just to kill time till I come back for you. Only six weeks or so."
Over their heads the
damp sails fluttered noisily in the first faint puff of the breeze; then, as
the airs freshened, the brig tended to the wind, and the silenced canvas lay
quietly aback. The mate spoke with low distinctness from the shadows of the
quarter-deck.
"There's the
breeze. Which way do you want to cast her, Captain Lingard?"
Lingard's eyes, that
had been fixed aloft, glanced down at the dejected figure of the man sitting on
the skylight. He seemed to hesitate for a minute.
"To the northward,
to the northward," he answered, testily, as if annoyed at his own fleeting
thought, "and bear a hand there. Every puff of wind is worth money in
these seas."
He remained motionless,
listening to the rattle of blocks and the creaking of trusses as the head-yards
were hauled round. Sail was made on the ship and the windlass manned again
while he stood still, lost in thought. He only roused himself when a barefooted
seacannie glided past him silently on his way to the wheel.
"Put the helm
aport! Hard over!" he said, in his harsh sea-voice, to the man whose face
appeared suddenly out of the darkness in the circle of light thrown upwards
from the binnacle lamps.
The anchor was secured,
the yards trimmed, and the brig began to move out of the roadstead. The sea
woke up under the push of the sharp cutwater, and whispered softly to the
gliding craft in that tender and rippling murmur in which it speaks sometimes
to those it nurses and loves. Lingard stood by the taff-rail listening, with a
pleased smile till the Flash began to draw close to the only other vessel in
the anchorage.
"Here,
Willems," he said, calling him to his side, "d'ye see that barque
here? That's an Arab vessel. White men have mostly given up the game, but this
fellow drops in my wake often, and lives in hopes of cutting me out in that
settlement. Not while I live, I trust. You see, Willems, I brought prosperity
to that place. I composed their quarrels, and saw them grow under my eyes.
There's peace and happiness there. I am more master there than his Dutch
Excellency down in Batavia ever will be when some day a lazy man-of-war
blunders at last against the river. I mean to keep the Arabs out of it, with
their lies and their intrigues. I shall keep the venomous breed out, if it
costs me my fortune."
The Flash drew quietly
abreast of the barque, and was beginning to drop it astern when a white figure
started up on the poop of the Arab vessel, and a voice called out--
"Greeting to the
Rajah Laut!"
"To you
greeting!" answered Lingard, after a moment of hesitating surprise. Then
he turned to Willems with a grim smile. "That's Abdulla's voice," he
said. "Mighty civil all of a sudden, isn't he? I wonder what it means.
Just like his impudence! No matter! His civility or his impudence are all one
to me. I know that this fellow will be under way and after me like a shot. I
don't care! I have the heels of anything that floats in these seas," he
added, while his proud and loving glance ran over and rested fondly amongst the
brig's lofty and graceful spars.
"IT WAS the
writing on his forehead," said Babalatchi, adding a couple of small sticks
to the little fire by which he was squatting, and without looking at Lakamba
who lay down supported on his elbow on the other side of the embers. "It
was written when he was born that he should end his life in darkness, and now
he is like a man walking in a black night--with his eyes open, yet seeing not.
I knew him well when he had slaves, and many wives, and much merchandise, and
trading praus, and praus for fighting. Haï--ya! He was a great fighter in the
days before the breath of the Merciful put out the light in his eyes. He was a
pilgrim, and had many virtues: he was brave, his hand was open, and he was a
great robber. For many years he led the men that drank blood on the sea: first
in prayer and first in fight! Have I not stood behind him when his face was
turned to the West? Have I not watched by his side ships with high masts
burning in a straight flame on the calm water? Have I not followed him on dark
nights amongst sleeping men that woke up only to die? His sword was swifter
than the fire from Heaven, and struck before it flashed. Haï! Tuan! Those were
the days and that was a leader, and I myself was younger; and in those days
there were not so many fireships with guns that deal fiery death from afar.
Over the hill and over the forest--O! Tuan Lakamba! they dropped whistling
fireballs into the creek where our praus took refuge, and where they dared not
follow men who had arms in their hands."
He shook his head with
mournful regret and threw another handful of fuel on the fire. The burst of
clear flame lit up his broad, dark, and pock-marked face, where the big lips,
stained with betel-juice, looked like a deep and bleeding gash of a fresh
wound. The reflection of the firelight gleamed brightly in his solitary eye,
lending it for a moment a fierce animation that died out together with the short-lived
flame. With quick touches of his bare hands he raked the embers into a heap,
then, wiping the warm ash on his waistcloth--his only garment--he clasped his
thin legs with his entwined fingers, and rested his chin on his drawn-up knees.
Lakamba stirred slightly without changing his position or taking his eyes off
the glowing coals, on which they had been fixed in dreamy immobility.
"Yes," went
on Babalatchi, in a low monotone, as if pursuing aloud a train of thought that
had its beginning in the silent contemplation of the unstable nature of earthly
greatness--"yes. He has been rich and strong, and now he lives on alms:
old, feeble, blind, and without companions, but for his daughter. The Rajah
Patalolo gives him rice, and the pale woman-- his daughter--cooks it for him,
for he has no slave."
"I saw her from
afar," muttered Lakamba, dis- paragingly. "A she-dog with white
teeth, like a woman of the Orang-Putih."
"Right,
right," assented Babalatchi; "but you have not seen her near. Her
mother was a woman from the west; a Baghdadi woman with veiled face. Now she
goes uncovered, like our women do, for she is poor and he is blind, and nobody
ever comes near them unless to ask for a charm or a blessing and depart quickly
for fear of his anger and of the Rajah's hand. You have not been on that side
of the river?"
"Not for a long
time. If I go . . ."
"True! true!"
interrupted Babalatchi, soothingly, "but I go often alone--for your
good--and look--and listen. When the time comes; when we both go together
towards the Rajah's campong, it will be to enter-- and to remain."
Lakamba sat up and
looked at Babalatchi gloomily.
"This is good
talk, once, twice; when it is heard too often it becomes foolish, like the
prattle of children."
"Many, many times
have I seen the cloudy sky and have heard the wind of the rainy seasons,"
said Babalatchi, impressively.
"And where is your
wisdom? It must be with the wind and the clouds of seasons past, for I do not
hear it in your talk."
"Those are the
words of the ungrateful!" shouted Babalatchi, with sudden exasperation.
"Verily, our only refuge is with the One, the Mighty, the Redresser of . .
."
"Peace!
Peace!" growled the startled Lakamba. "It is but a friend's
talk."
Babalatchi subsided into
his former attitude, muttering to himself. After awhile he went on again in a
louder voice--
"Since the Rajah
Laut left another white man here in Sambir, the daughter of the blind Omar el
Badavi has spoken to other ears than mine."
"Would a white man
listen to a beggar's daughter?" said Lakamba, doubtingly.
"Haï! I have seen
. . ."
"And what did you
see? O one-eyed one!" exclaimed Lakamba, contemptuously.
"I have seen the
strange white man walking on the narrow path before the sun could dry the drops
of dew on the bushes, and I have heard the whisper of his voice when he spoke
through the smoke of the morning fire to that woman with big eyes and a pale
skin. Woman in body, but in heart a man! She knows no fear and no shame. I have
heard her voice too."
He nodded twice at
Lakamba sagaciously and gave himself up to silent musing, his solitary eye
fixed immovably upon the straight wall of forest on the opposite bank. Lakamba
lay silent, staring vacantly. Under them Lingard's own river rippled softly
amongst the piles supporting the bamboo platform of the little watch-house
before which they were lying. Behind the house the ground rose in a gentle
swell of a low hill cleared of the big timber, but thickly overgrown with the
grass and bushes, now withered and burnt up in the long drought of the dry
season. This old rice clearing, which had been several years lying fallow, was
framed on three sides by the impenetrable and tangled growth of the untouched
forest, and on the fourth came down to the muddy river bank. There was not a
breath of wind on the land or river, but high above, in the transparent sky,
little clouds rushed past the moon, now appearing in her diffused rays with the
brilliance of silver, now obscuring her face with the blackness of ebony. Far
away, in the middle of the river, a fish would leap now and then with a short
splash, the very loudness of which measured the profundity of the overpowering
silence that swallowed up the sharp sound suddenly.
Lakamba dozed uneasily
off, but the wakeful Babalatchi sat thinking deeply, sighing from time to time,
and slapping himself over his naked torso incessantly in a vain endeavour to
keep off an occasional and wandering mosquito that, rising as high as the
platform above the swarms of the riverside, would settle with a ping of triumph
on the unexpected victim. The moon, pursuing her silent and toilsome path,
attained her highest elevation, and chasing the shadow of the roof-eaves from
Lakamba's face, seemed to hang arrested over their heads. Babalatchi revived
the fire and woke up his companion, who sat up yawning and shivering
discontentedly.
Babalatchi spoke again
in a voice which was like the murmur of a brook that runs over the stones: low,
monotonous, persistent; irresistible in its power to wear out and to destroy
the hardest obstacles. Lakamba listened, silent but interested. They were Malay
adventurers; ambitious men of that place and time; the Bohemians of their race.
In the early days of the settlement, before the ruler Patalolo had shaken off
his allegiance to the Sultan of Koti, Lakamba appeared in the river with two
small trading vessels. He was disappointed to find already some semblance of
organization amongst the settlers of various races who recognized the
unobtrusive sway of old Patalolo, and he was not politic enough to conceal his
disappointment. He declared himself to be a man from the east, from those parts
where no white man ruled, and to be of an oppressed race, but of a princely
family. And truly enough he had all the gifts of an exiled prince. He was
discontented, ungrateful, turbulent; a man full of envy and ready for intrigue,
with brave words and empty promises for ever on his lips. He was obstinate, but
his will was made up of short impulses that never lasted long enough to carry
him to the goal of his ambition. Received coldly by the suspicious Patalolo, he
persisted--permission or no permission--in clearing the ground on a good spot
some fourteen miles down the river from Sambir, and built himself a house
there, which he fortified by a high palisade. As he had many followers and
seemed very reckless, the old Rajah did not think it prudent at the time to
interfere with him by force. Once settled, he began to intrigue. The quarrel of
Patalolo with the Sultan of Koti was of his fomenting, but failed to produce
the result he expected because the Sultan could not back him up effectively at
such a great distance. Disappointed in that scheme, he promptly organized an
outbreak of the Bugis settlers, and besieged the old Rajah in his stockade with
much noisy valour and a fair chance of success; but Lingard then appeared on
the scene with the armed brig, and the old seaman's hairy forefinger, shaken
menacingly in his face, quelled his martial ardour. No man cared to encounter
the Rajah Laut, and Lakamba, with momentary resignation, subsided into a
half-cultivator, half-trader, and nursed in his fortified house his wrath and
his ambition, keeping it for use on a more propitious occasion. Still faithful
to his character of a prince-pretender, he would not recognize the constituted
authorities, answering sulkily the Rajah's messenger, who claimed the tribute
for the cultivated fields, that the Rajah had better come and take it himself.
By Lingard's advice he was left alone, notwithstanding his rebellious mood; and
for many days he lived undisturbed amongst his wives and retainers, cherishing
that persistent and causeless hope of better times, the possession of which
seems to be the universal privilege of exiled greatness.
But the passing days
brought no change. The hope grew faint and the hot ambition burnt itself out,
leaving only a feeble and expiring spark amongst a heap of dull and tepid ashes
of indolent acquiescence with the decrees of Fate, till Babalatchi fanned it
again into a bright flame. Babalatchi had blundered upon the river while in
search of a safe refuge for his disreputable head. He was a vagabond of the
seas, a true Orang-Laut, living by rapine and plunder of coasts and ships in
his prosperous days; earning his living by honest and irksome toil when the
days of adversity were upon him. So, although at times leading the Sulu rovers,
he had also served as Serang of country ships, and in that wise had visited the
distant seas, beheld the glories of Bombay, the might of the Mascati Sultan;
had even struggled in a pious throng for the privilege of touching with his
lips the Sacred Stone of the Holy City. He gathered experience and wisdom in
many lands, and after attaching himself to Omar el Badavi, he affected great
piety (as became a pilgrim), although unable to read the inspired words of the
Prophet. He was brave and bloodthirsty without any affection, and he hated the
white men who interfered with the manly pursuits of throat-cutting, kidnapping,
slave-dealing, and fire-raising, that were the only possible occupation for a
true man of the sea. He found favour in the eyes of his chief, the fearless
Omar el Badavi, the leader of Brunei rovers, whom he followed with
unquestioning loyalty through the long years of successful depredation. And
when that long career of murder, robbery and violence received its first
serious check at the hands of white men, he stood faithfully by his chief,
looked steadily at the bursting shells, was undismayed by the flames of the
burning stronghold, by the death of his companions, by the shrieks of their
women, the wailing of their children; by the sudden ruin and destruction of all
that he deemed indispensable to a happy and glorious existence. The beaten
ground between the houses was slippery with blood, and the dark mangroves of
the muddy creeks were full of sighs of the dying men who were stricken down
before they could see their enemy. They died helplessly, for into the tangled
forest there was no escape, and their swift praus, in which they had so often
scoured the coast and the seas, now wedged together in the narrow creek, were
burning fiercely. Babalatchi, with the clear perception of the coming end,
devoted all his energies to saving if it was but only one of them. He succeeded
in time. When the end came in the explosion of the stored powder-barrels, he
was ready to look for his chief. He found him half dead and totally blinded,
with nobody near him but his daughter Aïssa:--the sons had fallen earlier in
the day, as became men of their courage. Helped by the girl with the steadfast
heart, Babalatchi carried Omar on board the light prau and succeeded in
escaping, but with very few companions only. As they hauled their craft into
the network of dark and silent creeks, they could hear the cheering of the
crews of the man-of- war's boats dashing to the attack of the rover's village.
Aïssa, sitting on the high after-deck, her father's blackened and bleeding head
in her lap, looked up with fearless eyes at Babalatchi. "They shall find
only smoke, blood and dead men, and women mad with fear there, but nothing else
living," she said, mournfully. Babalatchi, pressing with his right hand
the deep gash on his shoulder, answered sadly: "They are very strong. When
we fight with them we can only die. Yet," he added, menacingly--"some
of us still live! Some of us still live!"
For a short time he
dreamed of vengeance, but his dream was dispelled by the cold reception of the
Sultan of Sulu, with whom they sought refuge at first and who gave them only a
contemptuous and grudging hospitality. While Omar, nursed by Aïssa, was
recovering from his wounds, Babalatchi attended industriously before the
exalted Presence that had extended to them the hand of Protection. For all
that, when Babalatchi spoke into the Sultan's ear certain proposals of a great
and profitable raid, that was to sweep the islands from Ternate to Acheen, the
Sultan was very angry. "I know you, you men from the west," he
exclaimed, angrily. "Your words are poison in a Ruler's ears. Your talk is
of fire and murder and booty--but on our heads falls the vengeance of the blood
you drink. Begone!"
There was nothing to be
done. Times were changed. So changed that, when a Spanish frigate appeared
before the island and a demand was sent to the Sultan to deliver Omar and his
companions, Babalatchi was not surprised to hear that they were going to be
made the victims of political expediency. But from that sane appreciation of
danger to tame submission was a very long step. And then began Omar's second
flight. It began arms in hand, for the little band had to fight in the night on
the beach for the possession of the small canoes in which those that survived
got away at last. The story of that escape lives in the hearts of brave men
even to this day. They talk of Babalatchi and of the strong woman who carried
her blind father through the surf under the fire of the warship from the north.
The companions of that piratical and son-less Æneas are dead now, but their
ghosts wander over the waters and the islands at night--after the manner of
ghosts --and haunt the fires by which sit armed men, as is meet for the spirits
of fearless warriors who died in battle. There they may hear the story of their
own deeds, of their own courage, suffering and death, on the lips of living
men. That story is told in many places. On the cool mats in breezy verandahs of
Rajahs' houses it is alluded to disdainfully by impassive statesmen, but
amongst armed men that throng the courtyards it is a tale which stills the
murmur of voices and the tinkle of anklets; arrests the passage of the
siri-vessel, and fixes the eyes in absorbed gaze. They talk of the fight, of
the fearless woman, of the wise man; of long suffering on the thirsty sea in
leaky canoes; of those who died. . . . Many died. A few survived. The chief,
the woman, and another one who became great.
There was no hint of
incipient greatness in Babalatchi's unostentatious arrival in Sambir. He came
with Omar and Aïssa in a small prau loaded with green cocoanuts, and claimed
the ownership of both vessel and cargo. How it came to pass that Babalatchi,
fleeing for his life in a small canoe, managed to end his hazardous journey in
a vessel full of a valuable commodity, is one of those secrets of the sea that
baffle the most searching inquiry. In truth nobody inquired much. There were
rumours of a missing trading prau belonging to Menado, but they were vague and
remained mysterious. Babalatchi told a story which-- it must be said in justice
to Patalolo's knowledge of the world--was not believed. When the Rajah ventured
to state his doubts, Babalatchi asked him in tones of calm remonstrance whether
he could reasonably suppose that two oldish men--who had only one eye amongst
them--and a young woman were likely to gain possession of anything whatever by
violence? Charity was a virtue recommended by the Prophet. There were
charitable people, and their hand was open to the deserving. Patalolo wagged
his aged head doubtingly, and Babalatchi withdrew with a shocked mien and put
himself forthwith under Lakamba's protection. The two men who completed the
prau's crew followed him into that magnate's campong. The blind Omar, with Aïssa,
remained under the care of the Rajah, and the Rajah confiscated the cargo. The
prau hauled up on the mud-bank, at the junction of the two branches of the
Pantai, rotted in the rain, warped in the sun, fell to pieces and gradually
vanished into the smoke of household fires of the settlement. Only a forgotten
plank and a rib or two, sticking neglected in the shiny ooze for a long time,
served to remind Babalatchi during many months that he was a stranger in the
land.
Otherwise, he felt
perfectly at home in Lakamba's establishment, where his peculiar position and
influence were quickly recognized and soon submitted to even by the women. He
had all a true vagabond's pliability to circumstances and adaptiveness to
momentary surroundings. In his readiness to learn from experience that contempt
for early principles so necessary to a true statesman, he equalled the most
successful politicians of any age; and he had enough persuasiveness and
firmness of purpose to acquire a complete mastery over Lakamba's vacillating
mind--where there was nothing stable but an all-pervading discontent. He kept
the discontent alive, he rekindled the expiring ambition, he moderated the poor
exile's not unnatural impatience to attain a high and lucrative position. He
--the man of violence--deprecated the use of force, for he had a clear
comprehension of the difficult situation. From the same cause, he--the hater of
white men--would to some extent admit the eventual expediency of Dutch
protection. But nothing should be done in a hurry. Whatever his master Lakamba
might think, there was no use in poisoning old Patalolo, he maintained. It
could be done, of course; but what then? As long as Lingard's influence was
paramount-- as long as Almayer, Lingard's representative, was the only great
trader of the settlement, it was not worth Lakamba's while--even if it had been
possible--to grasp the rule of the young state. Killing Almayer and Lingard was
so difficult and so risky that it might be dismissed as impracticable. What was
wanted was an alliance; somebody to set up against the white men's
influence--and somebody who, while favourable to Lakamba, would at the same
time be a person of a good standing with the Dutch authorities. A rich and
considered trader was wanted. Such a person once firmly established in Sambir
would help them to oust the old Rajah, to remove him from power or from life if
there was no other way. Then it would be time to apply to the Orang Blanda for
a flag; for a recognition of their meritorious services; for that protection
which would make them safe for ever! The word of a rich and loyal trader would
mean something with the Ruler down in Batavia. The first thing to do was to
find such an ally and to induce him to settle in Sambir. A white trader would
not do. A white man would not fall in with their ideas--would not be
trustworthy. The man they wanted should be rich, unscrupulous, have many
followers, and be a well-known personality in the islands. Such a man might be
found amongst the Arab traders. Lingard's jealousy, said Babalatchi, kept all
the traders out of the river. Some were afraid, and some did not know how to
get there; others ignored the very existence of Sambir; a good many did not
think it worth their while to run the risk of Lingard's enmity for the doubtful
advantage of trade with a comparatively unknown settlement. The great majority
were undesirable or untrustworthy. And Babalatchi mentioned regretfully the men
he had known in his young days: wealthy, resolute, courageous, reckless, ready
for any enterprise! But why lament the past and speak about the dead? There is
one man --living--great--not far off . . .
Such was Babalatchi's
line of policy laid before his ambitious protector. Lakamba assented, his only
objection being that it was very slow work. In his extreme desire to grasp
dollars and power, the unintellectual exile was ready to throw himself into the
arms of any wandering cut-throat whose help could be secured, and Babalatchi
experienced great difficulty in restraining him from unconsidered violence. It
would not do to let it be seen that they had any hand in introducing a new
element into the social and political life of Sambir. There was always a
possibility of failure, and in that case Lingard's vengeance would be swift and
certain. No risk should be run. They must wait.
Meantime he pervaded
the settlement, squatting in the course of each day by many household fires,
testing the public temper and public opinion--and always talking about his
impending departure. At night he would often take Lakamba's smallest canoe and
depart silently to pay mysterious visits to his old chief on the other side of
the river. Omar lived in odour of sanctity under the wing of Patalolo. Between
the bamboo fence, enclosing the houses of the Rajah, and the wild forest, there
was a banana plantation, and on its further edge stood two little houses built
on low piles under a few precious fruit trees that grew on the banks of a clear
brook, which, bubbling up behind the house, ran in its short and rapid course
down to the big river. Along the brook a narrow path led through the dense
second growth of a neglected clearing to the banana plantation and to the
houses in it which the Rajah had given for residence to Omar. The Rajah was
greatly impressed by Omar's ostentatious piety, by his oracular wisdom, by his
many misfortunes, by the solemn fortitude with which he bore his affliction.
Often the old ruler of Sambir would visit informally the blind Arab and listen
gravely to his talk during the hot hours of an afternoon. In the night,
Babalatchi would call and interrupt Omar's repose, unrebuked. Aïssa, standing
silently at the door of one of the huts, could see the two old friends as they
sat very still by the fire in the middle of the beaten ground between the two
houses, talking in an indistinct murmur far into the night. She could not hear
their words, but she watched the two formless shadows curiously. Finally
Babalatchi would rise and, taking her father by the wrist, would lead him back
to the house, arrange his mats for him, and go out quietly. Instead of going
away, Babalatchi, unconscious of Aïssa's eyes, often sat again by the fire, in
a long and deep meditation. Aïssa looked with respect on that wise and brave
man--she was accustomed to see at her father's side as long as she could
remember --sitting alone and thoughtful in the silent night by the dying fire,
his body motionless and his mind wandering in the land of memories, or--who
knows?-- perhaps groping for a road in the waste spaces of the uncertain
future.
Babalatchi noted the
arrival of Willems with alarm at this new accession to the white men's
strength. Afterwards he changed his opinion. He met Willems one night on the
path leading to Omar's house, and noticed later on, with only a moderate
surprise, that the blind Arab did not seem to be aware of the new white man's
visits to the neighbourhood of his dwelling. Once, coming unexpectedly in the
daytime, Babalatchi fancied he could see the gleam of a white jacket in the
bushes on the other side of the brook. That day he watched Aïssa pensively as
she moved about preparing the evening rice; but after awhile he went hurriedly
away before sunset, refusing Omar's hospitable invitation, in the name of
Allah, to share their meal. That same evening he startled Lakamba by announcing
that the time had come at last to make the first move in their long-deferred
game. Lakamba asked excitedly for explanation. Babalatchi shook his head and
pointed to the flitting shadows of moving women and to the vague forms of men
sitting by the evening fires in the courtyard. Not a word would he speak here,
he declared. But when the whole household was reposing, Babalatchi and Lakamba
passed silent amongst sleeping groups to the riverside, and, taking a canoe,
paddled off stealthily on their way to the dilapidated guard-hut in the old
rice-clearing. There they were safe from all eyes and ears, and could account, if
need be, for their excursion by the wish to kill a deer, the spot being well
known as the drinking-place of all kinds of game. In the seclusion of its quiet
solitude Babalatchi explained his plan to the attentive Lakamba. His idea was
to make use of Willems for the destruction of Lingard's influence.
"I know the white
men, Tuan," he said, in conclusion. "In many lands have I seen them;
always the slaves of their desires, always ready to give up their strength and
their reason into the hands of some woman. The fate of the Believers is written
by the hand of the Mighty One, but they who worship many gods are thrown into
the world with smooth foreheads, for any woman's hand to mark their destruction
there. Let one white man destroy another. The will of the Most High is that
they should be fools. They know how to keep faith with their enemies, but
towards each other they know only deception. Haï! I have seen! I have
seen!"
He stretched himself
full length before the fire, and closed his eye in real or simulated sleep.
Lakamba, not quite convinced, sat for a long time with his gaze riveted on the
dull embers. As the night advanced, a slight white mist rose from the river,
and the declining moon, bowed over the tops of the forest, seemed to seek the
repose of the earth, like a wayward and wandering lover who returns at last to
lay his tired and silent head on his beloved's breast.
"LEND me your gun,
Almayer," said Willems, across the table on which a smoky lamp shone redly
above the disorder of a finished meal. "I have a mind to go and look for a
deer when the moon rises to-night."
Almayer, sitting
sidewise to the table, his elbow pushed amongst the dirty plates, his chin on
his breast and his legs stretched stiffly out, kept his eyes steadily on the
toes of his grass slippers and laughed abruptly.
"You might say yes
or no instead of making that unpleasant noise," remarked Willems, with
calm irritation.
"If I believed one
word of what you say, I would," answered Almayer without changing his
attitude and speaking slowly, with pauses, as if dropping his words on the
floor. "As it is--what's the use? You know where the gun is; you may take
it or leave it. Gun. Deer. Bosh! Hunt deer! Pah! It's a . . . gazelle you are
after, my honoured guest. You want gold anklets and silk sarongs for that
game--my mighty hunter. And you won't get those for the asking, I promise you.
All day amongst the natives. A fine help you are to me."
"You shouldn't
drink so much, Almayer," said Willems, disguising his fury under an
affected drawl. "You have no head. Never had, as far as I can remember, in
the old days in Macassar. You drink too much."
"I drink my
own," retorted Almayer, lifting his head quickly and darting an angry
glance at Willems.
Those two specimens of
the superior race glared at each other savagely for a minute, then turned away
their heads at the same moment as if by previous arrangement, and both got up.
Almayer kicked off his slippers and scrambled into his hammock, which hung
between two wooden columns of the verandah so as to catch every rare breeze of
the dry season, and Willems, after standing irresolutely by the table for a
short time, walked without a word down the steps of the house and over the
courtyard towards the little wooden jetty, where several small canoes and a
couple of big white whale-boats were made fast, tugging at their short painters
and bumping together in the swift current of the river. He jumped into the
smallest canoe, balancing himself clumsily, slipped the rattan painter, and
gave an unnecessary and violent shove, which nearly sent him headlong
overboard. By the time he regained his balance the canoe had drifted some fifty
yards down the river. He knelt in the bottom of his little craft and fought the
current with long sweeps of the paddle. Almayer sat up in his hammock, grasping
his feet and peering over the river with parted lips till he made out the
shadowy form of man and canoe as they struggled past the jetty again.
"I thought you
would go," he shouted. "Won't you take the gun? Hey?" he yelled,
straining his voice. Then he fell back in his hammock and laughed to himself
feebly till he fell asleep. On the river, Willems, his eyes fixed intently
ahead, swept his paddle right and left, unheeding the words that reached him
faintly.
It was now three months
since Lingard had landed Willems in Sambir and had departed hurriedly, leaving
him in Almayer's care. The two white men did not get on well together. Almayer,
remembering the time when they both served Hudig, and when the superior Willems
treated him with offensive condescension, felt a great dislike towards his
guest. He was also jealous of Lingard's favour. Almayer had married a Malay
girl whom the old seaman had adopted in one of his accesses of unreasoning
benevolence, and as the marriage was not a happy one from a domestic point of
view, he looked to Lingard's fortune for compensation in his matrimonial
unhappiness. The appearance of that man, who seemed to have a claim of some
sort upon Lingard, filled him with considerable uneasiness, the more so because
the old seaman did not choose to acquaint the husband of his adopted daughter
with Willems' history, or to confide to him his intentions as to that
individual's future fate. Suspicious from the first, Almayer discouraged
Willems' attempts to help him in his trading, and then when Willems drew back,
he made, with characteristic perverseness, a grievance of his unconcern. From cold
civility in their relations, the two men drifted into silent hostility, then
into outspoken enmity, and both wished ardently for Lingard's return and the
end of a situation that grew more intolerable from day to day. The time dragged
slowly. Willems watched the succeeding sunrises wondering dismally whether
before the evening some change would occur in the deadly dullness of his life.
He missed the commercial activity of that existence which seemed to him far
off, irreparably lost, buried out of sight under the ruins of his past
success--now gone from him beyond the possibility of redemption. He mooned
disconsolately about Almayer's courtyard, watching from afar, with uninterested
eyes, the up-country canoes discharging guttah or rattans, and loading rice or
European goods on the little wharf of Lingard & Co. Big as was the extent
of ground owned by Almayer, Willems yet felt that there was not enough room for
him inside those neat fences. The man who, during long years, became accustomed
to think of himself as indispensable to others, felt a bitter and savage rage
at the cruel consciousness of his superfluity, of his uselessness; at the cold
hostility visible in every look of the only white man in this barbarous corner
of the world. He gnashed his teeth when he thought of the wasted days, of the
life thrown away in the unwilling company of that peevish and suspicious fool.
He heard the reproach of his idleness in the murmurs of the river, in the
unceasing whisper of the great forests. Round him everything stirred, moved,
swept by in a rush; the earth under his feet and the heavens above his head.
The very savages around him strove, struggled, fought, worked--if only to
prolong a miserable existence; but they lived, they lived! And it was only
himself that seemed to be left outside the scheme of creation in a hopeless
immobility filled with tormenting anger and with ever-stinging regret.
He took to wandering
about the settlement. The afterwards flourishing Sambir was born in a swamp and
passed its youth in malodorous mud. The houses crowded the bank, and, as if to
get away from the unhealthy shore, stepped boldly into the river, shooting over
it in a close row of bamboo platforms elevated on high piles, amongst which the
current below spoke in a soft and unceasing plaint of murmuring eddies. There
was only one path in the whole town and it ran at the back of the houses along
the succession of blackened circular patches that marked the place of the
household fires. On the other side the virgin forest bordered the path, coming
close to it, as if to provoke impudently any passer-by to the solution of the
gloomy problem of its depths. Nobody would accept the deceptive challenge.
There were only a few feeble attempts at a clearing here and there, but the
ground was low and the river, retiring after its yearly floods, left on each a
gradually diminishing mudhole, where the imported buffaloes of the Bugis
settlers wallowed happily during the heat of the day. When Willems walked on
the path, the indolent men stretched on the shady side of the houses looked at
him with calm curiosity, the women busy round the cooking fires would send
after him wondering and timid glances, while the children would only look once,
and then run away yelling with fright at the horrible appear- ance of the man
with a red and white face. These manifestations of childish disgust and fear
stung Wil- lems with a sense of absurd humiliation; he sought in his walks the
comparative solitude of the rudimentary clearings, but the very buffaloes
snorted with alarm at his sight, scrambled lumberingly out of the cool mud and
stared wildly in a compact herd at him as he tried to slink unperceived along
the edge of the forest. One day, at some unguarded and sudden movement of his,
the whole herd stampeded down the path, scattered the fires, sent the women
flying with shrill cries, and left behind a track of smashed pots, trampled
rice, over- turned children, and a crowd of angry men brandishing sticks in
loud-voiced pursuit. The innocent cause of that disturbance ran shamefacedly
the gauntlet of black looks and unfriendly remarks, and hastily sought refuge
in Almayer's campong. After that he left the settlement alone.
Later, when the
enforced confinement grew irksome, Willems took one of Almayer's many canoes and
crossed the main branch of the Pantai in search of some soli- tary spot where
he could hide his discouragement and his weariness. He skirted in his little
craft the wall of tangled verdure, keeping in the dead water close to the bank
where the spreading nipa palms nodded their broad leaves over his head as if in
contemptuous pity of the wandering outcast. Here and there he could see the
beginnings of chopped-out pathways, and, with the fixed idea of getting out of
sight of the busy river, he would land and follow the narrow and winding path,
only to find that it led nowhere, ending abruptly in the discouragement of
thorny thickets. He would go back slowly, with a bitter sense of unreasonable
disappointment and sadness; oppressed by the hot smell of earth, dampness, and
decay in that forest which seemed to push him mercilessly back into the
glittering sunshine of the river. And he would recommence paddling with tired
arms to seek another opening, to find another deception.
As he paddled up to the
point where the Rajah's stockade came down to the river, the nipas were left
behind rattling their leaves over the brown water, and the big trees would
appear on the bank, tall, strong, indifferent in the immense solidity of their
life, which endures for ages, to that short and fleeting life in the heart of
the man who crept painfully amongst their shadows in search of a refuge from
the unceasing reproach of his thoughts. Amongst their smooth trunks a clear
brook meandered for a time in twining lacets before it made up its mind to take
a leap into the hurrying river, over the edge of the steep bank. There was also
a pathway there and it seemed frequented. Willems landed, and following the
capricious promise of the track soon found himself in a comparatively clear space,
where the confused tracery of sunlight fell through the branches and the
foliage overhead, and lay on the stream that shone in an easy curve like a
bright sword- blade dropped amongst the long and feathery grass. Further on,
the path continued, narrowed again in the thick undergrowth. At the end of the
first turning Willems saw a flash of white and colour, a gleam of gold like a
sun-ray lost in shadow, and a vision of blackness darker than the deepest shade
of the forest. He stopped, surprised, and fancied he had heard light footsteps
--growing lighter--ceasing. He looked around. The grass on the bank of the
stream trembled and a tremulous path of its shivering, silver-grey tops ran
from the water to the beginning of the thicket. And yet there was not a breath
of wind. Somebody kind passed there. He looked pensive while the tremor died
out in a quick tremble under his eyes; and the grass stood high, unstirring,
with drooping heads in the warm and motionless air.
He hurried on, driven
by a suddenly awakened curiosity, and entered the narrow way between the
bushes. At the next turn of the path he caught again the glimpse of coloured
stuff and of a woman's black hair before him. He hastened his pace and came in
full view of the object of his pursuit. The woman, who was carrying two bamboo
vessels full of water, heard his footsteps, stopped, and putting the bamboos
down half turned to look back. Willems also stood still for a minute, then
walked steadily on with a firm tread, while the woman moved aside to let him
pass. He kept his eyes fixed straight before him, yet almost unconsciously he
took in every detail of the tall and graceful figure. As he approached her the
woman tossed her head slightly back, and with a free gesture of her strong,
round arm, caught up the mass of loose black hair and brought it over her
shoulder and across the lower part of her face. The next moment he was passing
her close, walking rigidly, like a man in a trance. He heard her rapid
breathing and he felt the touch of a look darted at him from half-open eyes. It
touched his brain and his heart together. It seemed to him to be something loud
and stirring like a shout, silent and penetrating like an inspiration. The
momentum of his motion carried him past her, but an invisible force made up of
surprise and curiosity and desire spun him round as soon as he had passed.
She had taken up her
burden already, with the intention of pursuing her path. His sudden movement
arrested her at the first step, and again she stood straight, slim, expectant,
with a readiness to dart away suggested in the light immobility of her pose.
High above, the branches of the trees met in a transparent shimmer of waving
green mist, through which the rain of yellow rays descended upon her head,
streamed in glints down her black tresses, shone with the changing glow of
liquid metal on her face, and lost itself in vanishing sparks in the sombre
depths of her eyes that, wide open now, with enlarged pupils, looked steadily
at the man in her path. And Willems stared at her, charmed with a charm that
carries with it a sense of irreparable loss, tingling with that feeling which
begins like a caress and ends in a blow, in that sudden hurt of a new emotion
making its way into a human heart, with the brusque stirring of sleeping
sensations awakening suddenly to the rush of new hopes, new fears, new desires
--and to the flight of one's old self.
She moved a step
forward and again halted. A breath of wind that came through the trees, but in
Willems' fancy seemed to be driven by her moving figure, rippled in a hot wave
round his body and scorched his face in a burning touch. He drew it in with a
long breath, the last long breath of a soldier before the rush of battle, of a
lover before he takes in his arms the adored woman; the breath that gives
courage to confront the menace of death or the storm of passion.
Who was she? Where did
she come from? Wonderingly he took his eyes off her face to look round at the
serried trees of the forest that stood big and still and straight, as if
watching him and her breathlessly. He had been baffled, repelled, almost
frightened by the intensity of that tropical life which wants the sunshine but
works in gloom; which seems to be all grace of colour and form, all brilliance,
all smiles, but is only the blossoming of the dead; whose mystery holds the
promise of joy and beauty, yet contains nothing but poison and decay. He had
been frightened by the vague perception of danger before, but now, as he looked
at that life again, his eyes seemed able to pierce the fantastic veil of
creepers and leaves, to look past the solid trunks, to see through the
forbidding gloom-- and the mystery was disclosed--enchanting, subduing,
beautiful. He looked at the woman. Through the checkered light between them she
appeared to him with the impalpable distinctness of a dream. The very spirit of
that land of mysterious forests, standing before him like an apparition behind
a transparent veil--a veil woven of sunbeams and shadows.
She had approached him
still nearer. He felt a strange impatience within him at her advance. Confused
thoughts rushed through his head, disordered, shapeless, stunning. Then he
heard his own voice asking--
"Who are
you?"
"I am the daughter
of the blind Omar," she answered, in a low but steady tone. "And
you," she went on, a little louder, "you are the white trader--the
great man of this place."
"Yes," said
Willems, holding her eyes with his in a sense of extreme effort, "Yes, I
am white." Then he added, feeling as if he spoke about some other man,
"But I am the outcast of my people."
She listened to him
gravely. Through the mesh of scattered hair her face looked like the face of a
golden statue with living eyes. The heavy eyelids dropped slightly, and from
between the long eyelashes she sent out a sidelong look: hard, keen, and
narrow, like the gleam of sharp steel. Her lips were firm and composed in a
graceful curve, but the distended nostrils, the up- ward poise of the
half-averted head, gave to her whole person the expression of a wild and
resentful defiance.
A shadow passed over
Willems' face. He put his hand over his lips as if to keep back the words that
wanted to come out in a surge of impulsive necessity, the outcome of dominant
thought that rushes from the heart to the brain and must be spoken in the face
of doubt, of danger, of fear, of destruction itself.
"You are
beautiful," he whispered.
She looked at him again
with a glance that running in one quick flash of her eyes over his sunburnt
features, his broad shoulders, his straight, tall, motionless figure, rested at
last on the ground at his feet. Then she smiled. In the sombre beauty of her
face that smile was like the first ray of light on a stormy daybreak that darts
evanescent and pale through the gloomy clouds: the forerunner of sunrise and of
thunder.
THERE are in our lives
short periods which hold no place in memory but only as the recollection of a
feeling. There is no remembrance of gesture, of action, of any outward
manifestation of life; those are lost in the unearthly brilliance or in the
unearthly gloom of such moments. We are absorbed in the contemplation of that
something, within our bodies, which rejoices or suffers while the body goes on
breathing, instinctively runs away or, not less instinctively, fights--perhaps
dies. But death in such a moment is the privilege of the fortunate, it is a
high and rare favour, a supreme grace.
Willems never
remembered how and when he parted from Aïssa. He caught himself drinking the
muddy water out of the hollow of his hand, while his canoe was drifting in
mid-stream past the last houses of Sambir. With his returning wits came the
fear of something unknown that had taken possession of his heart, of something
inarticulate and masterful which could not speak and would be obeyed. His first
impulse was that of revolt. He would never go back there. Never! He looked
round slowly at the brilliance of things in the deadly sunshine and took up his
paddle! How changed everything seemed! The river was broader, the sky was higher.
How fast the canoe flew under the strokes of his paddle! Since when had he
acquired the strength of two men or more? He looked up and down the reach at
the forests of the bank with a confused notion that with one sweep of his hand
he could tumble all these trees into the stream. His face felt burning. He
drank again, and shuddered with a depraved sense of pleasure at the after-taste
of slime in the water.
It was late when he
reached Almayer's house, but he crossed the dark and uneven courtyard, walking
lightly in the radiance of some light of his own, invisible to other eyes. His
host's sulky greeting jarred him like a sudden fall down a great height. He
took his place at the table opposite Almayer and tried to speak cheerfully to
his gloomy companion, but when the meal was ended and they sat smoking in
silence he felt an abrupt discouragement, a lassitude in all his limbs, a sense
of immense sadness as after some great and irreparable loss. The darkness of
the night entered his heart, bringing with it doubt and hesitation and dull
anger with himself and all the world. He had an impulse to shout horrible
curses, to quarrel with Almayer, to do something violent. Quite without any
immediate provocation he thought he would like to assault the wretched, sulky
beast. He glanced at him ferociously from under his eyebrows. The unconscious
Almayer smoked thoughtfully, planning to-morrow's work probably. The man's
composure seemed to Willems an unpardonable insult. Why didn't that idiot talk
to-night when he wanted him to? . . . on other nights he was ready enough to
chatter. And such dull nonsense too! And Willems, trying hard to repress his
own senseless rage, looked fixedly through the thick tobacco- smoke at the
stained tablecloth.
They retired early, as
usual, but in the middle of the night Willems leaped out of his hammock with a
stifled execration and ran down the steps into the courtyard. The two night
watchmen, who sat by a little fire talking together in a monotonous undertone,
lifted their heads to look wonderingly at the discomposed features of the white
man as he crossed the circle of light thrown out by their fire. He disappeared
in the darkness and then came back again, passing them close, but with no sign
of consciousness of their presence on his face. Back- wards and forwards he
paced, muttering to himself, and the two Malays, after a short consultation in
whispers left the fire quietly, not thinking it safe to remain in the vicinity
of a white man who behaved in such a strange manner. They retired round the
corner of the godown and watched Willems curiously through the night, till the
short daybreak was followed by the sudden blaze of the rising sun, and
Almayer's establishment woke up to life and work.
As soon as he could get
away unnoticed in the bustle of the busy riverside, Willems crossed the river
on his way to the place where he had met Aïssa. He threw himself down in the
grass by the side of the brook and listened for the sound of her footsteps. The
brilliant light of day fell through the irregular opening in the high branches
of the trees and streamed down, softened, amongst the shadows of big trunks.
Here and there a narrow sunbeam touched the rugged bark of a tree with a golden
splash, sparkled on the leaping water of the brook, or rested on a leaf that
stood out, shimmering and distinct, on the monotonous background of sombre
green tints. The clear gap of blue above his head was crossed by the quick
flight of white rice-birds whose wings flashed in the sunlight, while through
it the heat poured down from the sky, clung about the steaming earth, rolled
among the trees, and wrapped up Willems in the soft and odorous folds of air
heavy with the faint scent of blossoms and with the acrid smell of decaying
life. And in that atmosphere of Nature's workshop Willems felt soothed and
lulled into forgetfulness of his past, into indifference as to his future. The
recollections of his triumphs, of his wrongs and of his ambition vanished in
that warmth, which seemed to melt all regrets, all hope, all anger, all
strength out of his heart. And he lay there, dreamily contented, in the tepid
and perfumed shelter, thinking of Aïssa's eyes; recalling the sound of her
voice, the quiver of her lips--her frowns and her smile.
She came, of course. To
her he was something new, unknown and strange. He was bigger, stronger than any
man she had seen before, and altogether different from all those she knew. He
was of the victorious race. With a vivid remembrance of the great catastrophe
of her life he appeared to her with all the fascination of a great and
dangerous thing; of a terror vanquished, surmounted, made a plaything of. They
spoke with just such a deep voice--those victorious men; they looked with just
such hard blue eyes at their enemies. And she made that voice speak softly to
her, those eyes look tenderly at her face! He was indeed a man. She could not
understand all he told her of his life, but the fragments she understood she
made up for herself into a story of a man great amongst his own people,
valorous and unfortunate; an undaunted fugitive dreaming of vengeance against
his enemies. He had all the attractiveness of the vague and the unknown--of the
unforeseen and of the sudden; of a being strong, dangerous, alive, and human,
ready to be enslaved.
She felt that he was
ready. She felt it with the unerring intuition of a primitive woman confronted
by a simple impulse. Day after day, when they met and she stood a little way
off, listening to his words, holding him with her look, the undefined terror of
the new conquest became faint and blurred like the memory of a dream, and the
certitude grew distinct, and convincing, and visible to the eyes like some
material thing in full sunlight. It was a deep joy, a great pride, a tangible
sweetness that seemed to leave the taste of honey on her lips. He lay stretched
at her feet without moving, for he knew from experience how a slight movement
of his could frighten her away in those first days of their intercourse. He lay
very quiet, with all the ardour of his desire ringing in his voice and shining
in his eyes, whilst his body was still, like death itself. And he looked at
her, standing above him, her head lost in the shadow of broad and graceful
leaves that touched her cheek; while the slender spikes of pale green orchids
streamed down from amongst the boughs and mingled with the black hair that
framed her face, as if all those plants claimed her for their own--the animated
and brilliant flower of all that exuberant life which, born in gloom, struggles
for ever towards the sunshine.
Every day she came a
little nearer. He watched her slow progress--the gradual taming of that woman
by the words of his love. It was the monotonous song of praise and desire that,
commencing at creation, wraps up the world like an atmosphere and shall end
only in the end of all things--when there are no lips to sing and no ears to
hear. He told her that she was beautiful and desirable, and he repeated it
again and again; for when he told her that, he had said all there was within
him--he had expressed his only thought, his only feeling. And he watched the
startled look of wonder and mistrust vanish from her face with the passing
days, her eyes soften, the smile dwell longer and longer on her lips; a smile as
of one charmed by a delightful dream; with the slight exaltation of
intoxicating triumph lurking in its dawning tenderness.
And while she was near
there was nothing in the whole world--for that idle man--but her look and her
smile. Nothing in the past, nothing in the future; and in the present only the
luminous fact of her existence. But in the sudden darkness of her going he
would be left weak and helpless, as though despoiled violently of all that was
himself. He who had lived all his life with no preoccupation but that of his
own career, contemptuously indifferent to all feminine influence, full of scorn
for men that would submit to it, if ever so little; he, so strong, so superior
even in his errors, realized at last that his very individuality was snatched
from within himself by the hand of a woman. Where was the assurance and pride
of his cleverness; the belief in success, the anger of failure, the wish to
retrieve his fortune, the certitude of his ability to accomplish it yet? Gone.
All gone. All that had been a man within him was gone, and there remained only
the trouble of his heart--that heart which had become a contemptible thing;
which could be fluttered by a look or a smile, tormented by a word, soothed by
a promise.
When the longed-for day
came at last, when she sank on the grass by his side and with a quick gesture
took his hand in hers, he sat up suddenly with the movement and look of a man
awakened by the crash of his own falling house. All his blood, all his
sensation, all his life seemed to rush into that hand leaving him without
strength, in a cold shiver, in the sudden clamminess and collapse as of a
deadly gun-shot wound. He flung her hand away brutally, like something burning,
and sat motionless, his head fallen forward, staring on the ground and catching
his breath in painful gasps. His impulse of fear and apparent horror did not
dismay her in the least. Her face was grave and her eyes looked seriously at
him. Her fingers touched the hair of his temple, ran in a light caress down his
cheek, twisted gently the end of his long moustache: and while he sat in the
tremor of that contact she ran off with startling fleetness and disappeared in
a peal of clear laughter, in the stir of grass, in the nod of young twigs
growing over the path; leaving behind only a vanishing trail of motion and
sound.
He scrambled to his
feet slowly and painfully, like a man with a burden on his shoulders, and
walked towards the riverside. He hugged to his breast the recollection of his
fear and of his delight, but told himself seriously over and over again that
this must be the end of that adventure. After shoving off his canoe into the
stream he lifted his eyes to the bank and gazed at it long and steadily, as if
taking his last look at a place of charming memories. He marched up to
Almayer's house with the concentrated expres- sion and the determined step of a
man who had just taken a momentous resolution. His face was set and rigid, his
gestures and movements were guarded and slow. He was keeping a tight hand on
himself. A very tight hand. He had a vivid illusion--as vivid as reality
almost--of being in charge of a slippery prisoner. He sat opposite Almayer
during that dinner--which was their last meal together--with a perfectly calm
face and within him a growing terror of escape from his own self. Now and then
he would grasp the edge of the table and set his teeth hard in a sudden wave of
acute despair, like one who, falling down a smooth and rapid declivity that
ends in a precipice, digs his finger nails into the yielding surface and feels
himself slipping helplessly to inevitable destruction.
Then, abruptly, came a
relaxation of his muscles, the giving way of his will. Something seemed to snap
in his head, and that wish, that idea kept back during all those hours, darted
into his brain with the heat and noise of a conflagration. He must see her! See
her at once! Go now! To-night! He had the raging regret of the lost hour, of
every passing moment. There was no thought of resistance now. Yet with the
instinctive fear of the irrevocable, with the innate falseness of the human
heart, he wanted to keep open the way of retreat. He had never absented himself
during the night. What did Almayer know? What would Almayer think? Better ask
him for the gun. A moonlight night. . . . Look for deer. . . . A colourable
pretext. He would lie to Almayer. What did it matter! He lied to himself every
minute of his life. And for what? For a woman. And such. . . .
Almayer's answer showed
him that deception was useless. Everything gets to be known, even in this
place. Well, he did not care. Cared for nothing but for the lost seconds. What
if he should suddenly die. Die before he saw her. Before he could . . .
As, with the sound of
Almayer's laughter in his ears, he urged his canoe in a slanting course across
the rapid current, he tried to tell himself that he could return at any moment.
He would just go and look at the place where they used to meet, at the tree
under which he lay when she took his hand, at the spot where she sat by his
side. Just go there and then return--nothing more; but when his little skiff
touched the bank he leaped out, forgetting the painter, and the canoe hung for
a moment amongst the bushes and then swung out of sight before he had time to
dash into the water and secure it. He was thunderstruck at first. Now he could
not go back unless he called up the Rajah's people to get a boat and
rowers--and the way to Patalolo's campong led past Aïssa's house!
He went up the path
with the eager eyes and reluctant steps of a man pursuing a phantom, and when
he found himself at a place where a narrow track branched off to the left
towards Omar's clearing he stood still, with a look of strained attention on
his face as if listening to a far-off voice--the voice of his fate. It was a
sound inarticulate but full of meaning; and following it there came a rending
and tearing within his breast. He twisted his fingers together, and the joints
of his hands and arms cracked. On his forehead the perspiration stood out in
small pearly drops. He looked round wildly. Above the shapeless darkness of the
forest undergrowth rose the treetops with their high boughs and leaves standing
out black on the pale sky--like fragments of night floating on moonbeams. Under
his feet warm steam rose from the heated earth. Round him there was a great
silence.
He was looking round
for help. This silence, this immobility of his surroundings seemed to him a
cold rebuke, a stern refusal, a cruel unconcern. There was no safety outside of
himself--and in himself there was no refuge; there was only the image of that
woman. He had a sudden moment of lucidity--of that cruel lucidity that comes
once in life to the most benighted. He seemed to see what went on within him,
and was horrified at the strange sight. He, a white man whose worst fault till
then had been a little want of judgment and too much confidence in the
rectitude of his kind! That woman was a complete savage, and . . . He tried to
tell himself that the thing was of no consequence. It was a vain effort. The
novelty of the sensations he had never experienced before in the slightest
degree, yet had despised on hearsay from his safe position of a civilized man,
destroyed his courage. He was disappointed with himself. He seemed to be
surrendering to a wild creature the unstained purity of his life, of his race,
of his civilization. He had a notion of being lost amongst shapeless things
that were dangerous and ghastly. He struggled with the sense of certain defeat
--lost his footing--fell back into the darkness. With a faint cry and an upward
throw of his arms he gave up as a tired swimmer gives up: because the swamped
craft is gone from under his feet; because the night is dark and the shore is
far--because death is better than strife.
THE light and heat fell
upon the settlement, the clearings, and the river as if flung down by an angry
hand. The land lay silent, still, and brilliant under the avalanche of burning
rays that had destroyed all sound and all motion, had buried all shadows, had
choked every breath. No living thing dared to affront the serenity of this
cloudless sky, dared to revolt against the oppression of this glorious and
cruel sunshine. Strength and resolution, body and mind alike were helpless, and
tried to hide before the rush of the fire from heaven. Only the frail
butterflies, the fearless children of the sun, the capricious tyrants of the
flowers, fluttered audaciously in the open, and their minute shadows hovered in
swarms over the drooping blossoms, ran lightly on the withering grass, or
glided on tbe dry and cracked earth. No voice was heard in this hot noontide
but the faint murmur of the river that hurried on in swirls and eddies, its
sparkling wavelets chasing each other in their joyous course to the sheltering
depths, to the cool refuge of the sea.
Almayer had dismissed
his workmen for the midday rest, and, his little daughter on his shoulder, ran
quickly across the courtyard, making for the shade of the verandah of his
house. He laid the sleepy child on the seat of the big rocking-chair, on a
pillow which he took out of his own hammock, and stood for a while looking down
at her with tender and pensive eyes. The child, tired and hot, moved uneasily,
sighed, and looked up at him with the veiled look of sleepy fatigue. He picked
up from the floor a broken palm-leaf fan, and began fanning gently the flushed
little face. Her eyelids fluttered and Almayer smiled. A responsive smile
brightened for a second her heavy eyes, broke with a dimple the soft outline of
her cheek; then the eyelids dropped suddenly, she drew a long breath through the
parted lips--and was in a deep sleep before the fleeting smile could vanish
from her face.
Almayer moved lightly
off, took one of the wooden armchairs, and placing it close to the balustrade
of the verandah sat down with a sigh of relief. He spread his elbows on the top
rail and resting his chin on his clasped hands looked absently at the river, at
the dance of sunlight on the flowing water. Gradually the forest of the further
bank became smaller, as if sinking below the level of the river. The outlines wavered,
grew thin, dissolved in the air. Before his eyes there was now only a space of
undulating blue--one big, empty sky growing dark at times. . . . Where was the
sunshine? . . . He felt soothed and happy, as if some gentle and invisible hand
had removed from his soul the burden of his body. In another second he seemed
to float out into a cool brightness where there was no such thing as memory or
pain. Delicious. His eyes closed--opened--closed again.
"Almayer!"
With a sudden jerk of
his whole body he sat up, grasping the front rail with both his hands, and
blinked stupidly.
"What? What's
that?" he muttered, looking round vaguely.
"Here! Down here,
Almayer."
Half rising in his
chair, Almayer looked over the rail at the foot of the verandah, and fell back
with a low whistle of astonishment.
"A ghost, by
heavens!" he exclaimed softly to himself.
"Will you listen
to me?" went on the husky voice from the courtyard. "May I come up,
Almayer?"
Almayer stood up and
leaned over the rail.
"Don't you
dare," he said, in a voice subdued but distinct. "Don't you dare! The
child sleeps here. And I don't want to hear you--or speak to you either."
"You must listen
to me! It's something important."
"Not to me,
surely."
"Yes! To you. Very
important."
"You were always a
humbug," said Almayer, after a short silence, in an indulgent tone.
"Always! I remember the old days. Some fellows used to say there was no
one like you for smartness--but you never took me in. Not quite. I never quite
believed in you, Mr. Willems."
"I admit your
superior intelligence," retorted Willems, with scornful impatience, from
below. "Listening to me would be a further proof of it. You will be sorry
if you don't."
"Oh, you funny
fellow!" said Almayer, banteringly. "Well, come up. Don't make a
noise, but come up. You'll catch a sunstroke down there and die on my doorstep
perhaps. I don't want any tragedy here. Come on!"
Before he finished
speaking Willems' head appeared above the level of the floor, then his
shoulders rose gradually and he stood at last before Almayer--a masquerading
spectre of the once so very confidential clerk of the richest merchant in the
islands. His jacket was soiled and torn; below the waist he was clothed in a
worn-out and faded sarong. He flung off his hat, uncovering his long, tangled
hair that stuck in wisps on his perspiring forehead and straggled over his
eyes, which glittered deep down in the sockets like the last sparks amongst the
black embers of a burnt-out fire. An unclean beard grew out of the caverns of
his sunburnt cheeks. The hand he put out towards Almayer was very unsteady. The
once firm mouth had the tell-tale droop of mental suffering and physical
exhaustion. He was barefooted. Almayer surveyed him with leisurely composure.
"Well!" he
said at last, without taking the extended hand which dropped slowly along
Willems' body.
"I am come,"
began Willems.
"So I see,"
interrupted Almayer. "You might have spared me this treat without making
me unhappy. You have been away five weeks, if I am not mistaken. I got on very
well without you--and now you are here you are not pretty to look at."
"Let me speak,
will you!" exclaimed Willems.
"Don't shout like
this. Do you think yourself in the forest with your . . . your friends? This is
a civilized man's house. A white man's. Understand?"
"I am come,"
began Willems again; "I am come for your good and mine."
"You look as if
you had come for a good feed," chimed in the irrepressible Almayer, while
Willems waved his hand in a discouraged gesture. "Don't they give you
enough to eat," went on Almayer, in a tone of easy banter,
"those--what am I to call them --those new relations of yours? That old
blind scoundrel must be delighted with your company. You know, he was the
greatest thief and murderer of those seas. Say! do you exchange confidences?
Tell me, Willems, did you kill somebody in Macassar or did you only steal
something?"
"It is not
true!" exclaimed Willems, hotly. "I only borrowed. . . . They all
lied! I . . ."
"Sh-sh!"
hissed Almayer, warningly, with a look at the sleeping child. "So you did
steal," he went on, with repressed exultation. "I thought there was
something of the kind. And now, here, you steal again."
For the first time
Willems raised his eyes to Almayer's face. "Oh, I don't mean from me. I
haven't missed anything," said Almayer, with mocking haste. "But that
girl. Hey! You stole her. You did not pay the old fellow. She is no good to him
now, is she?"
"Stop that.
Almayer!"
Something in Willems'
tone caused Almayer to pause. He looked narrowly at the man before him, and
could not help being shocked at his appearance.
"Almayer,"
went on Willems, "listen to me. If you are a human being you will. I
suffer horribly-- and for your sake."
Almayer lifted his
eyebrows. "Indeed! How? But you are raving," he added, negligently.
"Ah! You don't
know," whispered Willems. "She is gone. Gone," he repeated, with
tears in his voice, "gone two days ago."
"No!"
exclaimed the surprised Almayer. "Gone! I haven't heard that news
yet." He burst into a subdued laugh. "How funny! Had enough of you
already? You know it's not flattering for you, my superior countryman."
Willems--as if not
hearing him--leaned against one of the columns of the roof and looked over the
river. "At first," he whispered, dreamily, "my life was like a
vision of heaven--or hell; I didn't know which. Since she went I know what
perdition means; what darkness is. I know what it is to be torn to pieces
alive. That's how I feel."
"You may come and
live with me again," said Almayer, coldly. "After all, Lingard--whom
I call my father and respect as such--left you under my care. You pleased
yourself by going away. Very good. Now you want to come back. Be it so. I am no
friend of yours. I act for Captain Lingard."
"Come back?"
repeated Willems, passionately. "Come back to you and abandon her? Do you
think I am mad? Without her! Man! what are you made of? To think that she
moves, lives, breathes out of my sight. I am jealous of the wind that fans her,
of the air she breathes, of the earth that receives the caress of her foot, of
the sun that looks at her now while I . . . I haven't seen her for two
days--two days."
The intensity of
Willems' feeling moved Almayer somewhat, but he affected to yawn elaborately
"You do bore
me," he muttered. "Why don't you go after her instead of coming
here?"
"Why indeed?"
"Don't you know
where she is? She can't be very far. No native craft has left this river for
the last fortnight."
"No! not very
far--and I will tell you where she is. She is in Lakamba's campong." And
Willems fixed his eyes steadily on Almayer's face.
"Phew! Patalolo
never sent to let me know. Strange," said Almayer, thoughtfully. "Are
you afraid of that lot?" he added, after a short pause.
"I--afraid!"
"Then is it the
care of your dignity which prevents you from following her there, my
high-minded friend?" asked Almayer, with mock solicitude. "How noble
of you!"
There was a short
silence; then Willems said, quietly, "You are a fool. I should like to
kick you."
"No fear,"
answered Almayer, carelessly; "you are too weak for that. You look
starved."
"I don't think I
have eaten anything for the last two days; perhaps more--I don't remember. It
does not matter. I am full of live embers," said Willems, gloomily.
"Look!" and he bared an arm covered with fresh scars. "I have
been biting myself to forget in that pain the fire that hurts me there!"
He struck his breast violently with his fist, reeled under his own blow, fell
into a chair that stood near and closed his eyes slowly.
"Disgusting
exhibition," said Almayer, loftily. "What could father ever see in
you? You are as estimable as a heap of garbage."
"You talk like
that! You, who sold your soul for a few guilders," muttered Willems,
wearily, without opening his eyes.
"Not so few,"
said Almayer, with instinctive readiness, and stopped confused for a moment. He
re- covered himself quickly, however, and went on: "But you--you have
thrown yours away for nothing; flung it under the feet of a damned savage woman
who has made you already the thing you are, and will kill you very soon, one
way or another, with her love or with her hate. You spoke just now about
guilders. You meant Lingard's money, I suppose. Well, whatever I have sold, and
for whatever price, I never meant you --you of all people--to spoil my bargain.
I feel pretty safe though. Even father, even Captain Lingard, would not touch
you now with a pair of tongs; not with a ten-foot pole. . . ."
He spoke excitedly, all
in one breath, and, ceasing suddenly, glared at Willems and breathed hard
through his nose in sulky resentment. Willems looked at him steadily for a
moment, then got up.
"Almayer," he
said resolutely, "I want to become a trader in this place."
Almayer shrugged his
shoulders.
"Yes. And you
shall set me up. I want a house and trade goods--perhaps a little money. I ask
you for it."
"Anything else you
want? Perhaps this coat?" and here Almayer unbuttoned his jacket--"or
my house --or my boots?"
"After all it's
natural," went on Willems, without paying any attention to
Almayer--"it's natural that she should expect the advantages which . . .
and then I could shut up that old wretch and then . . ."
He paused, his face
brightened with the soft light of dreamy enthusiasm, and he turned his eyes
upwards. With his gaunt figure and dilapidated appearance he looked like some
ascetic dweller in a wilderness, finding the reward of a self-denying life in a
vision of dazzling glory. He went on in an impassioned murmur--
"And then I would
have her all to myself away from her people--all to myself--under my own
influence --to fashion--to mould--to adore--to soften--to . . . Oh! Delight!
And then--then go away to some distant place where, far from all she knew, I
would be all the world to her! All the world to her!"
His face changed
suddenly. His eyes wandered for awhile and then became steady all at once.
"I would repay
every cent, of course," he said, in a business-like tone, with something
of his old assurance, of his old belief in himself, in it. "Every cent. I
need not interfere with your business. I shall cut out the small native
traders. I have ideas--but never mind that now. And Captain Lingard would
approve, I feel sure. After all it's a loan, and I shall be at hand. Safe thing
for you."
"Ah! Captain
Lingard would approve! He would app . . ." Almayer choked. The notion of
Lingard doing something for Willems enraged him. His face was purple. He
spluttered insulting words. Willems looked at him coolly.
"I assure you,
Almayer," he said, gently, "that I have good grounds for my
demand."
"Your cursed
impudence!"
"Believe me,
Almayer, your position here is not so safe as you may think. An unscrupulous
rival here would destroy your trade in a year. It would be ruin. Now Lingard's
long absence gives courage to certain individuals. You know?--I have heard much
lately. They made proposals to me . . . You are very much alone here. Even
Patalolo . . ."
"Damn Patalolo! I
am master in this place."
"But, Almayer,
don't you see . . ."
"Yes, I see. I see
a mysterious ass," interrupted Almayer, violently. "What is the
meaning of your veiled threats? Don't you think I know something also? They
have been intriguing for years--and nothing has happened. The Arabs have been
hanging about outside this river for years--and I am still the only trader
here; the master here. Do you bring me a declaration of war? Then it's from
yourself only. I know all my other enemies. I ought to knock you on the head.
You are not worth powder and shot though. You ought to be destroyed with a
stick--like a snake."
Almayer's voice woke up
the little girl, who sat up on the pillow with a sharp cry. He rushed over to
the chair, caught up the child in his arms, walked back blindly, stumbled
against Willems' hat which lay on the floor, and kicked it furiously down the
steps.
"Clear out of
this! Clear out!" he shouted.
Willems made an attempt
to speak, but Almayer howled him down.
"Take yourself
off! Don't you see you frighten the child--you scarecrow! No, no! dear,"
he went on to his little daughter, soothingly, while Willems walked down the
steps slowly. "No. Don't cry. See! Bad man going away. Look! He is afraid of
your papa. Nasty, bad man. Never come back again. He shall live in the woods
and never come near my little girl. If he comes papa will kill him--so!"
He struck his fist on the rail of the balustrade to show how he would kill
Willems, and, perching the consoled child on his shoulder held her with one
hand, while he pointed toward the retreating figure of his visitor.
"Look how he runs
away, dearest," he said, coaxingly. "Isn't he funny. Call 'pig' after
him, dearest. Call after him."
The seriousness of her
face vanished into dimples. Under the long eyelashes, glistening with recent
tears, her big eyes sparkled and danced with fun. She took firm hold of
Almayer's hair with one hand, while she waved the other joyously and called out
with all her might, in a clear note, soft and distinct like the pipe of a
bird:--
"Pig! Pig!
Pig!"
A SIGH under the
flaming blue, a shiver of the sleeping sea, a cool breath as if a door had been
swung upon the frozen spaces of the universe, and with a stir of leaves, with
the nod of boughs, with the tremble of slender branches the sea breeze struck
the coast, rushed up the river, swept round the broad reaches, and travelled on
in a soft ripple of darkening water, in the whisper of branches, in the rustle
of leaves of the awakened forests. It fanned in Lakamba's campong the dull red
of expiring embers into a pale brilliance; and, under its touch, the slender,
upright spirals of smoke that rose from every glowing heap swayed, wavered, and
eddying down filled the twilight of clustered shade trees with the aromatic
scent of the burning wood. The men who had been dozing in the shade during the
hot hours of the afternoon woke up, and the silence of the big courtyard was
broken by the hesitating murmur of yet sleepy voices, by coughs and yawns, with
now and then a burst of laughter, a loud hail, a name or a joke sent out in a
soft drawl. Small groups squatted round the little fires, and the monotonous
undertone of talk filled the enclosure; the talk of barbarians, persistent,
steady, repeating itself in the soft syllables, in musical tones of the
never-ending discourses of those men of the forests and the sea, who can talk
most of the day and all the night; who never exhaust a subject, never seem able
to thresh a matter out; to whom that talk is poetry and painting and music, all
art, all history; their only accomplishment, their only superiority, their only
amusement. The talk of camp fires, which speaks of bravery and cunning, of
strange events and of far countries, of the news of yesterday and the news of
to-morrow. The talk about the dead and the living-- about those who fought and
those who loved.
Lakamba came out on the
platform before his own house and sat down--perspiring, half asleep, and sulky
--in a wooden armchair under the shade of the over- hanging eaves. Through the
darkness of the doorway he could hear the soft warbling of his womenkind, busy
round the looms where they were weaving the checkered pattern of his gala
sarongs. Right and left of him on the flexible bamboo floor those of his
followers to whom their distinguished birth, long devotion, or faithful service
had given the privilege of using the chief's house, were sleeping on mats or
just sat up rubbing their eyes: while the more wakeful had mustered enough
energy to draw a chessboard with red clay on a fine mat and were now meditating
silently over their moves. Above the prostrate forms of the players, who lay
face downward supported on elbow, the soles of their feet waving irresolutely
about, in the absorbed meditation of the game, there towered here and there the
straight figure of an attentive spectator looking down with dispassionate but
profound interest. On the edge of the platform a row of high-heeled leather
sandals stood ranged carefully in a level line, and against the rough wooden
rail leaned the slender shafts of the spears belonging to these gentlemen, the
broad blades of dulled steel looking very black in the reddening light of
approaching sunset.
A boy of about
twelve--the personal attendant of Lakamba--squatted at his master's feet and
held up towards him a silver siri box. Slowly Lakamba took the box, opened it,
and tearing off a piece of green leaf deposited in it a pinch of lime, a morsel
of gambier, a small bit of areca nut, and wrapped up the whole with a dexterous
twist. He paused, morsel in hand, seemed to miss something, turned his head
from side to side, slowly, like a man with a stiff neck, and ejaculated in an
ill-humoured bass--
"Babalatchi!"
The players glanced up
quickly, and looked down again directly. Those men who were standing stirred
uneasily as if prodded by the sound of the chief's voice. The one nearest to
Lakamba repeated the call, after a while, over the rail into the courtyard.
There was a movement of upturned faces below by the fires, and the cry trailed
over the enclosure in sing-song tones. The thumping of wooden pestles husking
the evening rice stopped for a moment and Babalatchi's name rang afresh shrilly
on women's lips in various keys. A voice far off shouted something--another,
nearer, repeated it; there was a short hubbub which died out with extreme
suddenness. The first crier turned to Lakamba, saying indolently--
"He is with the
blind Omar."
Lakamba's lips moved
inaudibly. The man who had just spoken was again deeply absorbed in the game
going on at his feet; and the chief--as if he had forgotten all about it
already--sat with a stolid face amongst his silent followers, leaning back
squarely in his chair, his hands on the arms of his seat, his knees apart, his
big blood-shot eyes blinking solemnly, as if dazzled by the noble vacuity of
his thoughts.
Babalatchi had gone to
see old Omar late in the afternoon. The delicate manipulation of the ancient
pirate's susceptibilities, the skilful management of Aïssa's violent impulses
engrossed him to the exclusion of every other business--interfered with his
regular attendance upon his chief and protector--even disturbed his sleep for
the last three nights. That day when he left his own bamboo hut--which stood
amongst others in Lakamba's campong--his heart was heavy with anxiety and with
doubt as to the success of his intrigue. He walked slowly, with his usual air
of detachment from his surroundings, as if unaware that many sleepy eyes
watched from all parts of the courtyard his progress towards a small gate at
its upper end. That gate gave access to a separate enclosure in which a rather
large house, built of planks, had been prepared by Lakamba's orders for the
reception of Omar and Aïssa. It was a superior kind of habitation which Lakamba
intended for the dwelling of his chief adviser--whose abilities were worth that
honour, he thought. But after the consultation in the deserted clearing--when
Babalatchi had disclosed his plan-- they both had agreed that the new house should
be used at first to shelter Omar and Aïssa after they had been persuaded to
leave the Rajah's place, or had been kidnapped from there--as the case might
be. Babalatchi did not mind in the least the putting off of his own occupation
of the house of honour, because it had many advantages for the quiet working
out of his plans. It had a certain seclusion, having an enclosure of its own,
and that enclosure communicated also with Lakamba's private courtyard at the
back of his residence--a place set apart for the female household of the chief.
The only communication with the river was through the great front courtyard
always full of armed men and watchful eyes. Behind the whole group of buildings
there stretched the level ground of rice-clearings, which in their turn were
closed in by the wall of untouched forests with undergrowth so thick and
tangled that nothing but a bullet--and that fired at pretty close range--could
penetrate any distance there.
Babalatchi slipped
quietly through the little gate and, closing it, tied up carefully the rattan
fastenings. Before the house there was a square space of ground, beaten hard
into the level smoothness of asphalte. A big buttressed tree, a giant left
there on purpose during the process of clearing the land, roofed in the clear
space with a high canopy of gnarled boughs and thick, sombre leaves. To the
right--and some small distance away from the large house--a little hut of
reeds, covered with mats, had been put up for the special convenience of Omar,
who, being blind and infirm, had some difficulty in ascending the steep
plankway that led to the more substantial dwelling, which was built on low
posts and had an uncovered verandah. Close by the trunk of the tree, and facing
the doorway of the hut, the household fire glowed in a small handful of embers
in the midst of a large circle of white ashes. An old woman--some humble
relation of one of Lakamba's wives, who had been ordered to attend on Aïssa--was
squatting over the fire and lifted up her bleared eyes to gaze at Babalatchi in
an uninterested manner, as he advanced rapidly across the courtyard.
Babalatchi took in the
courtyard with a keen glance of his solitary eye, and without looking down at
the old woman muttered a question. Silently, the woman stretched a tremulous
and emaciated arm towards the hut. Babalatchi made a few steps towards the
doorway, but stopped outside in the sunlight.
"O! Tuan Omar,
Omar besar! It is I--Baba- latchi!"
Within the hut there
was a feeble groan, a fit of coughing and an indistinct murmur in the broken
tones of a vague plaint. Encouraged evidently by those signs of dismal life
within, Babalatchi entered the hut, and after some time came out leading with
rigid carefulness the blind Omar, who followed with both his hands on his guide's
shoulders. There was a rude seat under the tree, and there Babalatchi led his
old chief, who sat down with a sigh of relief and leaned wearily against the
rugged trunk. The rays of the setting sun, darting under the spreading
branches, rested on the white-robed figure sitting with head thrown back in
stiff dignity, on the thin hands moving uneasily, and on the stolid face with
its eyelids dropped over the destroyed eyeballs; a face set into the immo-
bility of a plaster cast yellowed by age.
"Is the sun near
its setting?" asked Omar, in a dull voice.
"Very near,"
answered Babalatchi.
"Where am I? Why
have I been taken away from the place which I knew--where I, blind, could move
without fear? It is like black night to those who see. And the sun is near its
setting--and I have not heard the sound of her footsteps since the morning!
Twice a strange hand has given me my food to-day. Why? Why? Where is she?"
"She is
near," said Babalatchi.
"And he?"
went on Omar, with sudden eagerness, and a drop in his voice. "Where is
he? Not here. Not here!" he repeated, turning his head from side to side
as if in deliberate attempt to see.
"No! He is not
here now," said Babalatchi, soothingly. Then, after a pause, he added very
low, "But he shall soon return."
"Return! O crafty
one! Will he return? I have cursed him three times," exclaimed Omar, with
weak violence.
"He is--no
doubt--accursed," assented Babalatchi, in a conciliating manner--"and
yet he will be here before very long--I know!"
"You are crafty
and faithless. I have made you great. You were dirt under my feet--less than
dirt," said Omar, with tremulous energy.
"I have fought by
your side many times," said Babalatchi, calmly.
"Why did he
come?" went on Omar. "Did you send him? Why did he come to defile the
air I breathe --to mock at my fate--to poison her mind and steal her body? She
has grown hard of heart to me. Hard and merciless and stealthy like rocks that
tear a ship's life out under the smooth sea." He drew a long breath,
struggled with his anger, then broke down suddenly. "I have been
hungry," he continued, in a whimpering tone--"often I have been very
hungry--and cold-- and neglected--and nobody near me. She has often forgotten
me--and my sons are dead, and that man is an infidel and a dog. Why did he
come? Did you show him the way?"
"He found the way
himself, O Leader of the brave," said Babalatchi, sadly. "I only saw
a way for their destruction and our own greatness. And if I saw aright, then
you shall never suffer from hunger any more. There shall be peace for us, and
glory and riches."
"And I shall die
to-morrow," murmured Omar, bitterly.
"Who knows? Those
things have been written since the beginning of the world," whispered
Babalatchi, thoughtfully.
"Do not let him
come back," exclaimed Omar.
"Neither can he
escape his fate," went on Babalatchi. "He shall come back, and the
power of men we always hated, you and I, shall crumble into dust in our
hand." Then he added with enthusiasm, "They shall fight amongst themselves
and perish both."
"And you shall see
all this, while, I . . ."
"True!"
murmured Babalatchi, regretfully. "To you life is darkness."
"No! Flame!"
exclaimed the old Arab, half rising, then falling back in his seat. "The
flame of that last day! I see it yet--the last thing I saw! And I hear the
noise of the rent earth--when they all died. And I live to be the plaything of
a crafty one," he added, with inconsequential peevishness.
"You are my master
still," said Babalatchi, humbly. "You are very wise--and in your
wisdom you shall speak to Syed Abdulla when he comes here--you shall speak to
him as I advised, I, your servant, the man who fought at your right hand for
many years. I have heard by a messenger that the Syed Abdulla is coming to-night,
perhaps late; for those things must be done secretly, lest the white man, the
trader up the river, should know of them. But he will be here. There has been a
surat delivered to Lakamba. In it, Syed Abdulla says he will leave his ship,
which is anchored outside the river, at the hour of noon to-day. He will be
here before daylight if Allah wills."
He spoke with his eye
fixed on the ground, and did not become aware of Aïssa's presence till he
lifted his head when he ceased speaking. She had approached so quietly that
even Omar did not hear her footsteps, and she stood now looking at them with
troubled eyes and parted lips, as if she was going to speak; but at
Babalatchi's entreating gesture she remained silent. Omar sat absorbed in
thought.
"Ay wa! Even so!"
he said at last, in a weak voice. "I am to speak your wisdom, O
Babalatchi! Tell him to trust the white man! I do not understand. I am old and
blind and weak. I do not understand. I am very cold," he continued, in a
lower tone, moving his shoulders uneasily. He ceased, then went on rambling in
a faint whisper. "They are the sons of witches, and their father is Satan
the stoned. Sons of witches. Sons of witches." After a short silence he
asked suddenly, in a firmer voice--"How many white men are there here, O
crafty one?"
"There are two
here. Two white men to fight one another," answered Babalatchi, with
alacrity.
"And how many will
be left then? How many? Tell me, you who are wise."
"The downfall of
an enemy is the consolation of the unfortunate," said Babalatchi,
sententiously. "They are on every sea; only the wisdom of the Most High
knows their number--but you shall know that some of them suffer."
"Tell me,
Babalatchi, will they die? Will they both die?" asked Omar, in sudden
agitation.
Aïssa made a movement.
Babalatchi held up a warning hand.
"They shall,
surely, die," he said steadily, looking at the girl with unflinching eye.
"Ay wa! But die
soon! So that I can pass my hand over their faces when Allah has made them
stiff."
"If such is their
fate and yours," answered Babalatchi, without hesitation. "God is
great!"
A violent fit of
coughing doubled Omar up, and he rocked himself to and fro, vvheezing and
moaning in turns, while Babalatchi and the girl looked at him in silence. Then
he leaned back against the tree, exhausted.
"I am alone, I am
alone," he wailed feebly, groping vaguely about with his trembling hands.
"Is there anybody near me? Is there anybody? I am afraid of this strange
place."
"I am by your
side, O Leader of the brave," said Babalatchi, touching his shoulder
lightly. "Always by your side as in the days when we both were young: as
in the time when we both went with arms in our hands."
"Has there been
such a time, Babalatchi?" said Omar, wildly; "I have forgotten. And
now when I die there will be no man, no fearless man to speak of his father's
bravery. There was a woman! A woman! And she has forsaken me for an infidel
dog. The hand of the Compassionate is heavy on my head! Oh, my calamity! Oh, my
shame!"
He calmed down after a
while, and asked quietly-- "Is the sun set, Babalatchi?"
"It is now as low
as the highest tree I can see from here," answered Babalatchi.
"It is the time of
prayer," said Omar, attempting to get up.
Dutifully Babalatchi
helped his old chief to rise, and they walked slowly towards the hut. Omar
waited outside, while Babalatchi went in and came out directly, dragging after
him the old Arab's praying carpet. Out of a brass vessel he poured the water of
ablution on Omar's outstretched hands, and eased him carefully down into a
kneeling posture, for the venerable robber was far too infirm to be able to
stand. Then as Omar droned out the first words and made his first bow towards
the Holy City, Babalatchi stepped noiselessly towards Aïssa, who did not move
all the time.
Aïssa looked steadily
at the one-eyed sage, who was approaching her slowly and with a great show of
deference. For a moment they stood facing each other in silence. Babalatchi
appeared embarrassed. With a sudden and quick gesture she caught hold of his
arm, and with the other hand pointed towards the sinking red disc that glowed,
rayless, through the floating mists of the evening.
"The third sunset!
The last! And he is not here," she whispered; "what have you done,
man without faith? What have you done?"
"Indeed I have
kept my word," murmured Babalatchi, earnestly. "This morning Bulangi
went with a canoe to look for him. He is a strange man, but our friend, and
shall keep close to him and watch him without ostentation. And at the third
hour of the day I have sent another canoe with four rowers. Indeed, the man you
long for, O daughter of Omar! may come when he likes."
"But he is not
here! I waited for him yesterday. To-day! To-morrow I shall go."
"Not alive!"
muttered Babalatchi to himself. "And do you doubt your power," he
went on in a louder tone--"you that to him are more beautiful than an
houri of the seventh Heaven? He is your slave."
"A slave does run
away sometimes," she said, gloomily, "and then the master must go and
seek him out."
"And do you want
to live and die a beggar?" asked Babalatchi, impatiently.
"I care not,"
she exclaimed, wringing her hands; and the black pupils of her wide-open eyes
darted wildly here and there like petrels before the storm.
"Sh! Sh!"
hissed Babalatchi, with a glance towards Omar. "Do you think, O girl! that
he himself would live like a beggar, even with you?"
"He is
great," she said, ardently. "He despises you all! He despises you
all! He is indeed a man!"
"You know that
best," muttered Babalatchi, with a fugitive smile--"but remember,
woman with the strong heart, that to hold him now you must be to him like the
great sea to thirsty men--a never-ceasing torment, and a madness."
He ceased and they
stood in silence, both looking on the ground, and for a time nothing was heard
above the crackling of the fire but the intoning of Omar glorifying the
God--his God, and the Faith--his faith. Then Babalatchi cocked his head on one
side and ap- peared to listen intently to the hum of voices in the big
courtyard. The dull noise swelled into distinct shouts, then into a great
tumult of voices, dying away, recommencing, growing louder, to cease again
abruptly; and in those short pauses the shrill vociferations of women rushed
up, as if released, towards the quiet heaven. Aïssa and Babalatchi started, but
the latter gripped in his turn the girl's arm and restrained her with a strong
grasp.
"Wait," he
whispered.
The little door in the
heavy stockade which separated Lakamba's private ground from Omar's enclosure
swung back quickly, and the noble exile appeared with disturbed mien and a
naked short sword in his hand. His turban was half unrolled, and the end
trailed on the ground behind him. His jacket was open. He breathed thickly for
a moment before he spoke.
"He came in
Bulangi's boat," he said, "and walked quietly till he was in my
presence, when the senseless fury of white men caused him to rush upon me. I
have been in great danger," went on the ambitious nobleman in an aggrieved
tone. "Do you hear that, Babalatchi? That eater of swine aimed a blow at
my face with his unclean fist. He tried to rush amongst my household. Six men
are holding him now."
A fresh outburst of
yells stopped Lakamba's discourse. Angry voices shouted: "Hold him. Beat
him down. Strike at his head." Then the clamour ceased with sudden
completeness, as if strangled by a mighty hand, and after a second of
surprising silence the voice of Willems was heard alone, howling maledictions in
Malay, in Dutch, and in English.
"Listen,"
said Lakamba, speaking with unsteady lips, "he blasphemes his God. His
speech is like the raving of a mad dog. Can we hold him for ever? He must be
killed!"
"Fool!"
muttered Babalatchi, looking up at Aïssa, who stood with set teeth, with
gleaming eyes and distended nostrils, yet obedient to the touch of his
restraining hand. "It is the third day, and I have kept my promise,"
he said to her, speaking very low. "Remember," he added warningly--"like
the sea to the thirsty! And now," he said aloud, releasing her and
stepping back, "go, fearless daughter, go!"
Like an arrow, rapid
and silent she flew down the enclosure, and disappeared through the gate of the
courtyard. Lakamba and Babalatchi looked after her. They heard the renewed
tumult, the girl's clear voice calling out, "Let him go!" Then after
a pause in the din no longer than half the human breath the name of Aïssa rang
in a shout loud, discordant, and piercing, which sent through them an
involuntary shudder. Old Omar collapsed on his carpet and moaned feebly;
Lakamba stared with gloomy contempt in the direction of the inhuman sound; but
Babalatchi, forcing a smile, pushed his distinguished protector through the
narrow gate in the stockade, followed him, and closed it quickly.
The old woman, who had
been most of the time kneeling by the fire, now rose, glanced round fearfully
and crouched hiding behind the tree. The gate of the great courtyard flew open
with a great clatter before a frantic kick, and Willems darted in carrying Aïssa
in his arms. He rushed up the enclosure like a tornado, pressing the girl to
his breast, her arms round his neck, her head hanging back over his arm, her
eyes closed and her long hair nearly touching the ground. They appeared for a
second in the glare of the fire, then, with immense strides, he dashed up the
planks and disappeared with his burden in the doorway of the big house.
Inside and outside the
enclosure there was silence. Omar lay supporting himself on his elbow, his terrified
face with its closed eyes giving him the appearance of a man tormented by a
nightmare.
"What is it? Help!
Help me to rise!" he called out faintly.
The old hag, still
crouching in the shadow, stared with bleared eyes at the doorway of the big house,
and took no notice of his call. He listened for a while, then his arm gave way,
and, with a deep sigh of discouragement, he let himself fall on the carpet.
The boughs of the tree
nodded and trembled in the unsteady currents of the light wind. A leaf
fluttered down slowly from some high branch and rested on the ground, immobile,
as if resting for ever, in the glow of the fire; but soon it stirred, then
soared suddenly, and flew, spinning and turning before the breath of the
perfumed breeze, driven helplessly into the dark night that had closed over the
land.
FOR upwards of forty
years Abdulla had walked in the way of his Lord. Son of the rich Syed Selim bin
Sali, the great Mohammedan trader of the Straits, he went forth at the age of seventeen
on his first commercial expedition, as his father's representative on board a
pilgrim ship chartered by the wealthy Arab to convey a crowd of pious Malays to
the Holy Shrine. That was in the days when steam was not in those seas--or, at
least, not so much as now. The voyage was long, and the young man's eyes were
opened to the wonders of many lands. Allah had made it his fate to become a
pilgrim very early in life. This was a great favour of Heaven, and it could not
have been bestowed upon a man who prized it more, or who made himself more
worthy of it by the unswerving piety of his heart and by the religious
solemnity of his demeanour. Later on it became clear that the book of his
destiny contained the programme of a wandering life. He visited Bombay and
Calcutta, looked in at the Persian Gulf, beheld in due course the high and
barren coasts of the Gulf of Suez, and this was the limit of his wanderings
westward. He was then twenty-seven, and the writing on his forehead decreed
that the time had come for him to return to the Straits and take from his dying
father's hands the many threads of a business that was spread over all the
Archipelago: from Sumatra to New Guinea, from Batavia to Palawan. Very soon his
ability, his will--strong to obstinacy--his wisdom beyond his years, caused him
to be recognized as the head of a family whose members and connections were
found in every part of those seas. An uncle here--a brother there; a
father-in-law in Batavia, another in Palembang; husbands of numerous sisters;
cousins innumerable scattered north, south, east, and west--in every place
where there was trade: the great family lay like a network over the islands.
They lent money to princes, influenced the council-rooms, faced--if need
be--with peaceful intrepidity the white rulers who held the land and the sea
under the edge of sharp swords; and they all paid great deference to Abdulla,
listened to his advice, entered into his plans--because he was wise, pious, and
fortunate.
He bore himself with
the humility becoming a Believer, who never forgets, even for one moment of his
waking life, that he is the servant of the Most High. He was largely charitable
because the charitable man is the friend of Allah, and when he walked out of
his house--built of stone, just outside the town of Penang--on his way to his
godowns in the port, he had often to snatch his hand away sharply from under
the lips of men of his race and creed; and often he had to murmur deprecating
words, or even to rebuke with severity those who attempted to touch his knees
with their finger-tips in gratitude or supplication. He was very handsome, and
carried his small head high with meek gravity. His lofty brow, straight nose,
narrow, dark face with its chiselled delicacy of feature, gave him an
aristocratic appearance which proclaimed his pure descent. His beard was
trimmed close and to a rounded point. His large brown eyes looked out steadily
with a sweetness that was belied by the expression of his thin-lipped mouth.
His aspect was serene. He had a belief in his own prosperity which nothing
could shake.
Restless, like all his
people, he very seldom dwelt for many days together in his splendid house in
Penang. Owner of ships, he was often on board one or another of them,
traversing in all directions the field of his operations. In every port he had
a household--his own or that of a relation--to hail his advent with
demonstrative joy. In every port there were rich and influential men eager to
see him, there was business to talk over, there were important letters to read:
an immense correspondence, enclosed in silk envelopes--a correspondence which
had nothing to do with the infidels of colonial post-offices, but came into his
hands by devious, yet safe, ways. It was left for him by taciturn nakhodas of
native trading craft, or was delivered with profound salaams by travel-stained
and weary men who would withdraw from his presence calling upon Allah to bless
the generous giver of splendid rewards. And the news was always good, and all
his attempts always succeeded, and in his ears there rang always a chorus of
admiration, of gratitude, of humble entreaties.
A fortunate man. And
his felicity was so complete that the good genii, who ordered the stars at his
birth, had not neglected--by a refinement of benevolence strange in such
primitive beings--to provide him with a desire difficult to attain, and with an
enemy hard to overcome. The envy of Lingard's political and commercial
successes, and the wish to get the best of him in every way, became Abdulla's
mania, the paramount interest of his life, the salt of his existence.
For the last few months
he had been receiving mysterious messages from Sambir urging him to decisive
action. He had found the river a couple of years ago, and had been anchored
more than once off that estuary where the, till then, rapid Pantai, spreading
slowly over the lowlands, seems to hesitate, before it flows gently through
twenty outlets; over a maze of mudflats, sandbanks and reefs, into the expectant
sea. He had never attempted the entrance, however, because men of his race,
although brave and adventurous travellers, lack the true seamanlike instincts,
and he was afraid of getting wrecked. He could not bear the idea of the Rajah
Laut being able to boast that Abdulla bin Selim, like other and lesser men, had
also come to grief when trying to wrest his secret from him. Meantime he
returned encouraging answers to his unknown friends in Sambir, and waited for
his opportunity in the calm certitude of ultimate triumph.
Such was the man whom
Lakamba and Babalatchi expected to see for the first time on the night of
Willems' return to Aïssa. Babalatchi, who had been tormented for three days by
the fear of having over- reached himself in his little plot, now, feeling sure
of his white man, felt lighthearted and happy as he super- intended the
preparations in the courtyard for Abdulla's reception. Half-way between
Lakamba's house and the river a pile of dry wood was made ready for the torch
that would set fire to it at the moment of Abdulla's landing. Between this and
the house again there was, ranged in a semicircle, a set of low bamboo frames,
and on those were piled all the carpets and cushions of Lakamba's household. It
had been decided that the reception was to take place in the open air, and that
it should be made impressive by the great number of Lakamba's retainers, who,
clad in clean white, with their red sarongs gathered round their waists,
chopper at side and lance in hand, were moving about the compound or, gathering
into small knots, discussed eagerly the coming ceremony.
Two little fires burned
brightly on the water's edge on each side of the landing place. A small heap of
damar-gum torches lay by each, and between them Babalatchi strolled backwards
and forwards, stopping often with his face to the river and his head on one
side, listening to the sounds that came from the darkness over the water. There
was no moon and the night was very clear overhead, but, after the afternoon
breeze had expired in fitful puffs, the vapours hung thickening over the
glancing surface of the Pantai and clung to the shore, hiding from view the
middle of the stream.
A cry in the mist--then
another--and, before Babalatchi could answer, two little canoes dashed up to
the landing-place, and two of the principal citizens of Sambir, Daoud Sahamin
and Hamet Bahassoen, who had been confidentially invited to meet Abdulla,
landed quickly and after greeting Babalatchi walked up the dark courtyard
towards the house. The little stir caused by their arrival soon subsided, and
another silent hour dragged its slow length while Babalatchi tramped up and
down between the fires, his face growing more anxious with every passing
moment.
At last there was heard
a loud hail from down the river. At a call from Babalatchi men ran down to the
riverside and, snatching the torches, thrust them into the fires, then waved
them above their heads till they burst into a flame. The smoke ascended in
thick, wispy streams, and hung in a ruddy cloud above the glare that lit up the
courtyard and flashed over the water, showing three long canoes manned by many
paddlers lying a little off; the men in them lifting their paddles on high and
dipping them down together, in an easy stroke that kept the small flotilla
motionless in the strong current, exactly abreast of the landing place. A man
stood up in the largest craft and called out--
"Syed Abdulla bin
Selim is here!"
Babalatchi answered
aloud in a formal tone--
"Allah gladdens
our hearts! Come to the land!"
Abdulla landed first,
steadying himself by the help of Babalatchi's extended hand. In the short
moment of his passing from the boat to the shore they exchanged sharp glances
and a few rapid words.
"Who are
you?"
"Babalatchi. The
friend of Omar. The protected of Lakamba."
"You wrote?"
"My words were
written, O Giver of alms!"
And then Abdulla walked
with composed face between the two lines of men holding torches, and met
Lakamba in front of the big fire that was crackling itself up into a great
blaze. For a moment they stood with clasped hands invoking peace upon each
other's head, then Lakamba, still holding his honoured guest by the hand, led
him round the fire to the prepared seats. Babalatchi followed close behind his
protector. Abdulla was accompanied by two Arabs. He, like his companions, was
dressed in a white robe of starched muslin, which fell in stiff folds straight
from the neck. It was buttoned from the throat halfway down with a close row of
very small gold buttons; round the tight sleeves there was a narrow braid of
gold lace. On his shaven head he wore a small skull-cap of plaited grass. He
was shod in patent leather slippers over his naked feet. A rosary of heavy
wooden beads hung by a round turn from his right wrist. He sat down slowly in
the place of honour, and, dropping his slippers, tucked up his legs under him
decorously.
The improvised divan
was arranged in a wide semi-circle, of which the point most distant from the
fire --some ten yards--was also the nearest to Lakamba's dwelling. As soon as
the principal personages were seated, the verandah of the house was filled
silently by the muffled-up forms of Lakamba's female belongings. They crowded
close to the rail and looked down, whispering faintly. Below, the formal exchange
of compliments went on for some time between Lakamba and Abdulla, who sat side
by side. Babalatchi squatted humbly at his protector's feet, with nothing but a
thin mat between himself and the hard ground.
Then there was a pause.
Abdulla glanced round in an expectant manner, and after a while Babalatchi, who
had been sitting very still in a pensive attitude, seemed to rouse himself with
an effort, and began to speak in gentle and persuasive tones. He described in
flowing sentences the first beginnings of Sambir, the dispute of the present
ruler, Patalolo, with the Sultan of Koti, the consequent troubles ending with
the rising of Bugis settlers under the leadership of Lakamba. At different
points of the narrative he would turn for confirmation to Sahamin and
Bahassoen, who sat listening eagerly and assented together with a "Betul!
Betul! Right! Right!" ejaculated in a fervent undertone.
Warming up with his
subject as the narrative proceeded, Babalatchi went on to relate the facts
connected with Lingard's action at the critical period of those internal
dissensions. He spoke in a restrained voice still, but with a growing energy of
indignation. What was he, that man of fierce aspect, to keep all the world away
from them? Was he a government? Who made him ruler? He took possession of
Patalolo's mind and made his heart hard; he put severe words into his mouth and
caused his hand to strike right and left. That unbeliever kept the Faithful
panting under the weight of his senseless oppression. They had to trade with
him--accept such goods as he would give--such credit as he would accord. And he
exacted payment every year . . .
"Very true!"
exclaimed Sahamin and Bahassoen together.
Babalatchi glanced at
them approvingly and turned to Abdulla.
"Listen to those men,
O Protector of the oppressed!" he exclaimed. "What could we do? A man
must trade. There was nobody else."
Sahamin got up, staff
in hand, and spoke to Abdulla with ponderous courtesy, emphasizing his words by
the solemn flourishes of his right arm.
"It is so. We are
weary of paying our debts to that white man here, who is the son of the Rajah
Laut. That white man--may the grave of his mother be defiled!--is not content
to hold us all in his hand with a cruel grasp. He seeks to cause our very death.
He trades with the Dyaks of the forest, who are no better than monkeys. He buys
from them guttah and rattans--while we starve. Only two days ago I went to him
and said, 'Tuan Almayer'--even so; we must speak politely to that friend of
Satan--'Tuan Almayer, I have such and such goods to sell. Will you buy?' And he
spoke thus--because those white men have no understanding of any courtesy--he
spoke to me as if I was a slave: 'Daoud, you are a lucky man'--remark, O First
amongst the Believers! that by those words he could have brought misfortune on
my head--'you are a lucky man to have anything in these hard times. Bring your
goods quickly, and I shall receive them in payment of what you owe me from last
year.' And he laughed, and struck me on the shoulder with his open hand. May
Jehannum be his lot!"
"We will fight
him," said young Bahassoen, crisply. "We shall fight if there is help
and a leader. Tuan Abdulla, will you come among us?"
Abdulla did not answer
at once. His lips moved in an inaudible whisper and the beads passed through
his fingers with a dry click. All waited in respectful silence. "I shall
come if my ship can enter this river," said Abdulla at last, in a solemn
tone.
"It can,
Tuan," exclaimed Babalatchi. "There is a white man here who . .
."
"I want to see
Omar el Badavi and that white man you wrote about," interrupted Abdulla.
Babalatchi got on his
feet quickly, and there was a general move. The women on the verandah hurried
indoors, and from the crowd that had kept discreetly in distant parts of the
courtyard a couple of men ran with armfuls of dry fuel, which they cast upon
the fire. One of them, at a sign from Babalatchi, approached and, after getting
his orders, went towards the little gate and entered Omar's enclosure. While
waiting for his return, Lakamba, Abdulla, and Babalatchi talked together in low
tones. Sahamin sat by himself chewing betel-nut sleepily with a slight and
indolent motion of his heavy jaw. Bahassoen, his hand on the hilt of his short
sword, strutted backwards and forwards in the full light of the fire, looking
very warlike and reckless; the envy and admiration of Lakamba's retainers, who
stood in groups or flitted about noiselessly in the shadows of the courtyard.
The messenger who had
been sent to Omar came back and stood at a distance, waiting till somebody
noticed him. Babalatchi beckoned him close.
"What are his
words?" asked Babalatchi.
"He says that Syed
Abdulla is welcome now," answered the man.
Lakamba was speaking
low to Abdulla, who listened to him with deep interest.
". . . We could
have eighty men if there was need," he was saying--"eighty men in
fourteen canoes. The only thing we want is gunpowder . . ."
"Haï! there will
be no fighting," broke in Babalatchi. "The fear of your name will be
enough and the terror of your coming."
"There may be
powder too," muttered Abdulla with great nonchalance, "if only the
ship enters the river safely."
"If the heart is
stout the ship will be safe," said Babalatchi. "We will go now and
see Omar el Badavi and the white man I have here."
Lakamba's dull eyes
became animated suddenly.
"Take care, Tuan Abdulla,"
he said, "take care. The behaviour of that unclean white madman is furious
in the extreme. He offered to strike . . ."
"On my head, you
are safe, O Giver of alms!" interrupted Babalatchi.
Abdulla looked from one
to the other, and the faintest flicker of a passing smile disturbed for a
moment his grave composure. He turned to Babalatchi, and said with decision--
"Let us go."
"This way, O
Uplifter of our hearts!" rattled on Babalatchi, with fussy deference.
"Only a very few paces and you shall behold Omar the brave, and a white
man of great strength and cunning. This way."
He made a sign for
Lakamba to remain behind, and with respectful touches on the elbow steered
Abdulla towards the gate at the upper end of the courtyard. As they walked on
slowly, followed by the two Arabs, he kept on talking in a rapid undertone to
the great man, who never looked at him once, although appearing to listen with
flattering attention. When near the gate Babalatchi moved forward and stopped,
facing Abdulla, with his hand on the fastenings.
"You shall see
them both," he said. "All my words about them are true. When I saw
him enslaved by the one of whom I spoke, I knew he would be soft in my hand
like the mud of the river. At first he answered my talk with bad words of his
own language, after the manner of white men. Afterwards, when listening to the
voice he loved, he hesitated. He hesitated for many days--too many. I, knowing
him well, made Omar withdraw here with his . . . household. Then this red-faced
man raged for three days like a black panther that is hungry. And this evening,
this very evening, he came. I have him here. He is in the grasp of one with a
merciless heart. I have him here," ended Babalatchi, exultingly tapping
the upright of the gate with his hand.
"That is
good," murmured Abdulla.
"And he shall
guide your ship and lead in the fight-- if fight there be," went on
Babalatchi. "If there is any killing--let him be the slayer. You should
give him arms--a short gun that fires many times."
"Yes, by
Allah!" assented Abdulla, with slow thoughtfulness.
"And you will have
to open your hand, O First amongst the generous!" continued Babalatchi.
"You will have to satisfy the rapacity of a white man, and also of one who
is not a man, and therefore greedy of ornaments."
"They shall be
satisfied," said Abdulla; "but . . ." He hesitated, looking down
on the ground and stroking his beard, while Babalatchi waited, anxious, with
parted lips. After a short time he spoke again jerkily in an indistinct whisper,
so that Babalatchi had to turn his head to catch the words. "Yes. But Omar
is the son of my father's uncle . . . and all belonging to him are of the Faith
. . . while that man is an unbeliever. It is most unseemly . . . very unseemly.
He cannot live under my shadow. Not that dog. Penitence! I take refuge with my
God," he mumbled rapidly. "How can he live under my eyes with that
woman, who is of the Faith? Scandal! O abomination!"
He finished with a rush
and drew a long breath, then added dubiously--
"And when that man
has done all we want, what is to be done with him?"
They stood close
together, meditative and silent, their eyes roaming idly over the courtyard.
The big bonfire burned brightly, and a wavering splash of light lay on the dark
earth at their feet, while the lazy smoke wreathed itself slowly in gleaming
coils amongst the black boughs of the trees. They could see Lakamba, who had
returned to his place, sitting hunched up spiritlessly on the cushions, and
Sahamin, who had got on his feet again and appeared to be talking to him with
dignified animation. Men in twos or threes came out of the shadows into the
light, strolling slowly, and passed again into the shadows, their faces turned
to each other, their arms moving in restrained gestures. Bahassoen, his head
proudly thrown back, his ornaments, embroideries, and sword-hilt flashing in
the light, circled steadily round the fire like a planet round the sun. A cool
whiff of damp air came from the darkness of the riverside; it made Abdulla and
Babalatchi shiver, and woke them up from their abstraction.
"Open the gate and
go first," said Abdulla; "there is no danger?"
"On my life,
no!" answered Babalatchi, lifting the rattan ring. "He is all peace
and content, like a thirsty man who has drunk water after many days."
He swung the gate wide,
made a few paces into the gloom of the enclosure, and retraced his steps
suddenly.
"He may be made
useful in many ways," he whispered to Abdulla, who had stopped short,
seeing him come back.
"O Sin! O
Temptation!" sighed out Abdulla, faintly. "Our refuge is with the
Most High. Can I feed this infidel for ever and for ever?" he added,
impatiently.
"No,"
breathed out Babalatchi. "No! Not for ever. Only while he serves your
designs, O Dispenser of Allah's gifts! When the time comes--and your order . .
."
He sidled close to
Abdulla, and brushed with a delicate touch the hand that hung down listlessly,
holding the prayer-beads.
"I am your slave
and your offering," he murmured, in a distinct and polite tone, into
Abdulla's ear. "When your wisdom speaks, there may be found a little
poison that will not lie. Who knows?"
BABALATCHI saw Abdulla
pass through the low and narrow entrance into the darkness of Omar's hut; heard
them exchange the usual greetings and the distinguished visitor's grave voice
asking: "There is no misfortune--please God--but the sight?" and
then, becoming aware of the disapproving looks of the two Arabs who had
accompanied Abdulla, he followed their example and fell back out of earshot. He
did it unwillingly, although he did not ignore that what was going to happen in
there was now absolutely beyond his control. He roamed irresolutely about for
awhile, and at last wandered with careless steps towards the fire, which had
been moved, from under the tree, close to the hut and a little to windward of
its entrance. He squatted on his heels and began playing pensively with live
embers, as was his habit when engrossed in thought, withdrawing his hand
sharply and shaking it above his head when he burnt his fingers in a fit of
deeper abstraction. Sitting there he could hear the murmur of the talk inside
the hut, and he could distinguish the voices but not the words. Abdulla spoke
in deep tones, and now and then this flowing monotone was interrupted by a
querulous exclamation, a weak moan or a plaintive quaver of the old man. Yes.
It was annoying not to be able to make out what they were saying, thought
Babalatchi, as he sat gazing fixedly at the unsteady glow of the fire. But it
will be right. All will be right. Abdulla inspired him with confidence. He came
up fully to his expectation. From the very first moment when he set his eye on
him he felt sure that this man-- whom he had known by reputation only--was very
resolute. Perhaps too resolute. Perhaps he would want to grasp too much later
on. A shadow flitted over Babalatchi's face. On the eve of the accomplishment
of his desires he felt the bitter taste of that drop of doubt which is mixed
with the sweetness of every success.
When, hearing footsteps
on the verandah of the big house, he lifted his head, the shadow had passed
away and on his face there was an expression of watchful alertness. Willems was
coming down the plankway, into the courtyard. The light within trickled through
the cracks of the badly joined walls of the house, and in the illuminated
doorway appeared the moving form of Aïssa. She also passed into the night
outside and disappeared from view. Babalatchi wondered where she had got to,
and for the moment forgot the approach of Willems. The voice of the white man
speaking roughly above his head made him jump to his feet as if impelled
upwards by a powerful spring.
"Where's
Abdulla?"
Babalatchi waved his
hand towards the hut and stood listening intently. The voices within had
ceased, then recommenced again. He shot an oblique glance at Willems, whose
indistinct form towered above the glow of dying embers.
"Make up this
fire," said Willems, abruptly. "I want to see your face."
With obliging alacrity
Babalatchi put some dry brushwood on the coals from a handy pile, keeping all
the time a watchful eye on Willems. When he straightened himself up his hand
wandered almost involuntarily towards his left side to feel the handle of a
kriss amongst the folds of his sarong, but he tried to look unconcerned under
the angry stare.
"You are in good
health, please God?" he murmured.
"Yes!"
answered Willems, with an unexpected loudness that caused Babalatchi to start
nervously. "Yes! . . . Health! . . . You . . ."
He made a long stride
and dropped both his hands on the Malay's shoulders. In the powerful grip
Babalatchi swayed to and fro limply, but his face was as peaceful as when he
sat--a little while ago--dreaming by the fire. With a final vicious jerk
Willems let go suddenly, and turning away on his heel stretched his hands over
the fire. Babalatchi stumbled backwards, recovered himself, and wriggled his
shoulders laboriously.
"Tse! Tse!
Tse!" he clicked, deprecatingly. After a short silence he went on with
accentuated admiration: "What a man it is! What a strong man! A man like
that"--he concluded, in a tone of meditative wonder-- "a man like
that could upset mountains--mountains!"
He gazed hopefully for
a while at Willems' broad shoulders, and continued, addressing the inimical
back, in a low and persuasive voice--
"But why be angry
with me? With me who think only of your good? Did I not give her refuge, in my
own house? Yes, Tuan! This is my own house. I will let you have it without any
recompense because she must have a shelter. Therefore you and she shall live
here. Who can know a woman's mind? And such a woman! If she wanted to go away
from that other place, who am I--to say no! I am Omar's servant. I said:
'Gladden my heart by taking my house.' Did I say right?"
"I'll tell you
something," said Willems, without changing his position; "if she
takes a fancy to go away from this place it is you who shall suffer. I will
wring your neck."
"When the heart is
full of love there is no room in it for justice," recommenced Babalatchi,
with unmoved and persistent softness. "Why slay me? You know, Tuan, what
she wants. A splendid destiny is her desire --as of all women. You have been
wronged and cast out by your people. She knows that. But you are brave, you are
strong--you are a man; and, Tuan-- I am older than you--you are in her hand.
Such is the fate of strong men. And she is of noble birth and cannot live like
a slave. You know her--and you are in her hand. You are like a snared bird,
because of your strength. And--remember I am a man that has seen much--submit,
Tuan! Submit! . . . Or else . . ."
He drawled out the last
words in a hesitating manner and broke off his sentence. Still stretching his
hands in turns towards the blaze and without moving his head, Willems gave a
short, lugubrious laugh, and asked--
"Or else
what?"
"She may go away
again. Who knows?" finished Babalatchi, in a gentle and insinuating tone.
This time Willems spun
round sharply. Babalatchi stepped back.
"If she does it
will be the worse for you," said Willems, in a menacing voice. "It
will be your doing, and I . . ."
Babalatchi spoke, from
beyond the circle of light, with calm disdain.
"Haï--ya! I have
heard before. If she goes-- then I die. Good! Will that bring her back do you think--Tuan?
If it is my doing it shall be well done, O white man! and--who knows--you will
have to live without her."
Willems gasped and
started back like a confident wayfarer who, pursuing a path he thinks safe,
should see just in time a bottomless chasm under his feet. Babalatchi came into
the light and approached Willems sideways, with his head thrown back and a
little on one side so as to bring his only eye to bear full on the countenance
of the tall white man.
"You threaten
me," said Willems, indistinctly.
"I, Tuan!"
exclaimed Babalatchi, with a slight suspicion of irony in the affected surprise
of his tone. "I, Tuan? Who spoke of death? Was it I? No! I spoke of life
only. Only of life. Of a long life for a lonely man!"
They stood with the
fire between them, both silent, both aware, each in his own way, of the
importance of the passing minutes. Babalatchi's fatalism gave him only an
insignificant relief in his suspense, because no fatalism can kill the thought
of the future, the desire of success, the pain of waiting for the disclosure of
the immutable decrees of Heaven. Fatalism is born of the fear of failure, for
we all believe that we carry success in our own hands, and we suspect that our
hands are weak. Babalatchi looked at Willems and congratulated himself upon his
ability to manage that white man. There was a pilot for Abdulla--a victim to
appease Lingard's anger in case of any mishap. He would take good care to put
him forward in everything. In any case let the white men fight it out amongst
themselves. They were fools. He hated them--the strong fools-- and knew that
for his righteous wisdom was reserved the safe triumph.
Willems measured
dismally the depth of his degradation. He--a white man, the admired of white
men, was held by those miserable savages whose tool he was about to become. He
felt for them all the hate of his race, of his morality, of his intelligence.
He looked upon himself with dismay and pity. She had him. He had heard of such
things. He had heard of women who . . . He would never believe such stories. .
. . Yet they were true. But his own captivity seemed more complete, terrible,
and final--without the hope of any redemption. He wondered at the wickedness of
Providence that had made him what he was; that, worse still, permitted such a
creature as Almayer to live. He had done his duty by going to him. Why did he
not understand? All men were fools. He gave him his chance. The fellow did not
see it. It was hard, very hard on himself--Willems. He wanted to take her from
amongst her own people. That's why he had condescended to go to Almayer. He
examined himself. With a sinking heart he thought that really he could
not--somehow--live without her. It was terrible and sweet. He remembered the first
days. Her appearance, her face, her smile, her eyes, her words. A savage woman!
Yet he perceived that he could think of nothing else but of the three days of
their separation, of the few hours since their reunion. Very well. If he could
not take her away, then he would go to her. . . . He had, for a moment, a
wicked pleasure in the thought that what he had done could not be undone. He
had given himself up. He felt proud of it. He was ready to face anything, do
anything. He cared for nothing, for nobody. He thought himself very fearless,
but as a matter of fact he was only drunk; drunk with the poison of passionate
memories.
He stretched his hands
over the fire, looked round and called out--
"Aïssa!"
She must have been
near, for she appeared at once within the light of the fire. The upper part of
her body was wrapped up in the thick folds of a head covering which was pulled
down over her brow, and one end of it thrown across from shoulder to shoulder
hid the lower part of her face. Only her eyes were visible--sombre and gleaming
like a starry night.
Willems, looking at
this strange, muffled figure, felt exasperated, amazed and helpless. The
ex-confidential clerk of the rich Hudig would hug to his breast settled
conceptions of respectable conduct. He sought refuge within his ideas of
propriety from the dismal mangroves, from the darkness of the forests and of
the heathen souls of the savages that were his masters. She looked like an
animated package of cheap cotton goods! It made him furious. She had disguised
herself so because a man of her race was near! He told her not to do it, and
she did not obey. Would his ideas ever change so as to agree with her own
notions of what was becoming, proper and respectable? He was really afraid they
would, in time. It seemed to him awful. She would never change! This
manifestation of her sense of proprieties was another sign of their hopeless
diversity; something like another step downwards for him. She was too different
from him. He was so civilized! It struck him suddenly that they had nothing in
common--not a thought, not a feeling; he could not make clear to her the
simplest motive of any act of his . . . and he could not live without her.
The courageous man who
stood facing Babalatchi gasped unexpectedly with a gasp that was half a groan.
This little matter of her veiling herself against his wish acted upon him like
a disclosure of some great disaster. It increased his contempt for himself as
the slave of a passion he had always derided, as the man unable to assert his
will. This will, all his sensations, his personality--all this seemed to be
lost in the abominable desire, in the priceless promise of that woman. He was
not, of course, able to discern clearly the causes of his misery; but there are
none so ignorant as not to know suffering, none so simple as not to feel and
suffer from the shock of warring impulses. The ignorant must feel and suffer
from their complexity as well as the wisest; but to them the pain of struggle
and defeat appears strange, mysterious, remediable and unjust. He stood
watching her, watching himself. He tingled with rage from head to foot, as if
he had been struck in the face. Suddenly he laughed; but his laugh was like a
distorted echo of some insincere mirth very far away.
From the other side of
the fire Babalatchi spoke hurriedly--
"Here is Tuan
Abdulla."
DIRECTLY on stepping
outside Omar's hut Abdulla caught sight of Willems. He expected, of course, to
see a white man, but not that white man, whom he knew so well. Everybody who
traded in the islands, and who had any dealings with Hudig, knew Willems. For
the last two years of his stay in Macassar the confidential clerk had been
managing all the local trade of the house under a very slight supervision only
on the part of the master. So everybody knew Willems, Abdulla amongst
others--but he was ignorant of Willems' disgrace. As a matter of fact the thing
had been kept very quiet--so quiet that a good many people in Macassar were
expecting Willems' return there, supposing him to be absent on some
confidential mission. Abdulla, in his surprise, hesitated on the threshold. He
had prepared himself to see some seaman--some old officer of Lingard's; a
common man--perhaps difficult to deal with, but still no match for him. Instead,
he saw himself confronted by an individual whose reputation for sagacity in
business was well known to him. How did he get here, and why? Abdulla,
recovering from his surprise, advanced in a dignified manner towards the fire,
keeping his eyes fixed steadily on Willems. When within two paces from Willems
he stopped and lifted his right hand in grave salutation. Willems nodded
slightly and spoke after a while.
"We know each
other, Tuan Abdulla," he said, with an assumption of easy indifference.
"We have traded
together," answered Abdulla, solemnly, "but it was far from
here."
"And we may trade
here also," said Willems.
"The place does
not matter. It is the open mind and the true heart that are required in
business."
"Very true. My
heart is as open as my mind. I will tell you why I am here."
"What need is
there? In leaving home one learns life. You travel. Travelling is victory! You
shall return with much wisdom."
"I shall never
return," interrupted Willems. "I have done with my people. I am a man
without brothers. Injustice destroys fidelity."
Abdulla expressed his
surprise by elevating his eyebrows. At the same time he made a vague gesture
with his arm that could be taken as an equivalent of an approving and
conciliating "just so!"
Till then the Arab had
not taken any notice of Aïssa, who stood by the fire, but now she spoke in the
interval of silence following Willems' declaration. In a voice that was much
deadened by her wrappings she addressed Abdulla in a few words of greeting, calling
him a kinsman. Abdulla glanced at her swiftly for a second, and then, with
perfect good breeding, fixed his eyes on the ground. She put out towards him
her hand, covered with a corner of her face-veil, and he took it, pressed it
twice, and dropping it turned towards Willems. She looked at the two men
searchingly, then backed away and seemed to melt suddenly into the night.
"I know what you
came for, Tuan Abdulla," said Willems; "I have been told by that man
there." He nodded towards Babalatchi, then went on slowly, "It will
be a difficult thing."
"Allah makes
everything easy," interjected Babalatchi, piously, from a distance.
The two men turned
quickly and stood looking at him thoughtfully, as if in deep consideration of
the truth of that proposition. Under their sustained gaze Babalatchi
experienced an unwonted feeling of shyness, and dared not approach nearer. At
last Willems moved slightly, Abdulla followed readily, and they both walked
down the courtyard, their voices dying away in the darkness. Soon they were
heard returning, and the voices grew distinct as their forms came out of the
gloom. By the fire they wheeled again, and Babalatchi caught a few words.
Willems was saying--
"I have been at
sea with him many years when young. I have used my knowledge to observe the way
into the river when coming in, this time."
Abdulla assented in
general terms
"In the variety of
knowledge there is safety," he said; and then they passed out of earshot.
Babalatchi ran to the
tree and took up his position in the solid blackness under its branches,
leaning against the trunk. There he was about midway between the fire and the
other limit of the two men's walk. They passed him close. Abdulla slim, very
straight, his head high, and his hands hanging before him and twisting
mechanically the string of beads; Willems tall, broad, looking bigger and
stronger in contrast to the slight white figure by the side of which he
strolled carelessly, taking one step to the other's two; his big arms in
constant motion as he gesticulated vehemently, bending forward to look Abdulla
in the face.
They passed and
repassed close to Babalatchi some half a dozen times, and, whenever they were
between him and the fire, he could see them plain enough. Sometimes they would
stop short, Willems speaking emphatically, Abdulla listening with rigid
attention. then, when the other had ceased, bending his head slightly as if
consenting to some demand, or admitting some statement. Now and then Babalatchi
caught a word here and there, a fragment of a sentence, a loud exclamation.
Impelled by curiosity he crept to the very edge of the black shadow under the
tree. They were nearing him, and he heard Willems say--
"You will pay that
money as soon as I come on board. That I must have."
He could not catch
Abdulla's reply. When they went past again, Willems was saying--
"My life is in
your hand anyway. The boat that brings me on board your ship shall take the
money to Omar. You must have it ready in a sealed bag."
Again they were out of
hearing, but instead of coming back they stopped by the fire facing each other.
Willems moved his arm, shook his hand on high talking all the time, then
brought it down jerkily--stamped his foot. A short period of immobility ensued.
Babalatchi, gazing intently, saw Abdulla's lips move almost imperceptibly.
Suddenly Willems seized the Arab's passive hand and shook it. Babalatchi drew
the long breath of relieved suspense. The conference was over. All well,
apparently.
He ventured now to
approach the two men, who saw him and waited in silence. Willems had retired
within himself already, and wore a look of grim indifference. Abdulla moved
away a step or two. Babalatchi looked at him inquisitively.
"I go now,"
said Abdulla, "and shall wait for you outside the river, Tuan Willems,
till the second sunset. You have only one word, I know."
"Only one
word," repeated Willems.
Abdulla and Babalatchi
walked together down the enclosure, leaving the white man alone by the fire.
The two Arabs who had come with Abdulla preceded them and passed at once
through the little gate into the light and the murmur of voices of the
principal courtyard, but Babalatchi and Abdulla stopped on this side of it.
Abdulla said--
"It is well. We
have spoken of many things. He consents."
"When?" asked
Babalatchi, eagerly.
"On the second day
from this. I have promised every thing. I mean to keep much."
"Your hand is
always open, O Most Generous amongst Believers! You will not forget your servant
who called you here. Have I not spoken the truth? She has made roast meat of
his heart."
With a horizontal sweep
of his arm Abdulla seemed to push away that last statement, and said slowly,
with much meaning--
"He must be
perfectly safe; do you understand? Perfectly safe--as if he was amongst his own
people-- till . . ."
"Till when?"
whispered Babalatchi.
"Till I
speak," said Abdulla. "As to Omar." He hesitated for a moment,
then went on very low: "He is very old."
"Haï-ya! Old and
sick," murmured Babalatchi, with sudden melancholy.
"He wanted me to
kill that white man. He begged me to have him killed at once," said
Abdulla, contemptuously, moving again towards the gate.
"He is impatient,
like those who feel death near them," exclaimed Babalatchi,
apologetically.
"Omar shall dwell
with me," went on Abdulla, "when . . . But no matter. Remember! The
white man must be safe."
He lives in your
shadow," answered Babalatchi, solemnly. "It is enough!" He
touched his forehead and fell back to let Abdulla go first.
And now they are back
in the courtyard wherefrom, at their appearance, listlessness vanishes, and all
the faces become alert and interested once more. Lakamba approaches his guest,
but looks at Babalatchi, who reassures him by a confident nod. Lakamba clumsily
attempts a smile, and looking, with natural and ineradicable sulkiness, from
under his eyebrows at the man whom he wants to honour, asks whether he would
condescend to visit the place of sitting down and take food. Or perhaps he would
prefer to give himself up to repose? The house is his, and what is in it, and
those many men that stand afar watching the interview are his. Syed Abdulla
presses his host's hand to his breast, and informs him in a confidential murmur
that his habits are ascetic and his temperament inclines to melancholy. No
rest; no food; no use whatever for those many men who are his. Syed Abdulla is
impatient to be gone. Lakamba is sorrowful but polite, in his hesitating,
gloomy way. Tuan Abdulla must have fresh boatmen, and many, to shorten the dark
and fatiguing road. Haï-ya! There! Boats!
By the riverside
indistinct forms leap into a noisy and disorderly activity. There are cries,
orders, banter, abuse. Torches blaze sending out much more smoke than light,
and in their red glare Babalatchi comes up to say that the boats are ready.
Through that lurid
glare Syed Abdulla, in his long white gown, seems to glide fantastically, like
a dignified apparition attended by two inferior shades, and stands for a moment
at the landing-place to take leave of his host and ally--whom he loves. Syed
Abdulla says so distinctly before embarking, and takes his seat in the middle
of the canoe under a small canopy of blue calico stretched on four sticks.
Before and behind Syed Abdulla, the men squatting by the gunwales hold high the
blades of their paddles in readiness for a dip, all together. Ready? Not yet.
Hold on all! Syed Abdulla speaks again, while Lakamba and Babalatchi stand
close on the bank to hear his words. His words are encouraging. Before the sun
rises for the second time they shall meet, and Syed Abdulla's ship shall float
on the waters of this river--at last! Lakamba and Babalatchi have no doubt--if
Allah wills. They are in the hands of the Compassionate. No doubt. And so is
Syed Abdulla, the great trader who does not know what the word failure means;
and so is the white man --the smartest business man in the islands--who is
lying now by Omar's fire with his head on Aïssa's lap, while Syed Abdulla flies
down the muddy river with current and paddles between the sombre walls of the
sleeping forest; on his way to the clear and open sea where the Lord of the
Isles (formerly of Greenock, but condemned, sold, and registered now as of
Penang) waits for its owner, and swings erratically at anchor in the currents
of the capricious tide, under the crumbling red cliffs of Tanjong Mirrah.
For some time Lakamba,
Sahamin, and Bahassoen looked silently into the humid darkness which had
swallowed the big canoe that carried Abdulla and his unvarying good fortune.
Then the two guests broke into a talk expressive of their joyful anticipations.
The venerable Sahamin, as became his advanced age, found his delight in
speculation as to the activities of a rather remote future. He would buy praus,
he would send expeditions up the river, he would enlarge his trade, and, backed
by Abdulla's capital, he would grow rich in a very few years. Very few.
Meantime it would be a good thing to interview Almayer to-morrow and, profiting
by the last day of the hated man's prosperity, obtain some goods from him on
credit. Sahamin thought it could be done by skilful wheedling. After all, that
son of Satan was a fool, and the thing was worth doing, because the coming
revolution would wipe all debts out. Sahamin did not mind imparting that idea
to his companions, with much senile chuckling, while they strolled together
from the riverside towards the residence. The bull-necked Lakamba, listening
with pouted lips without the sign of a smile, without a gleam in his dull,
bloodshot eyes, shuffled slowly across the courtyard between his two guests.
But suddenly Bahassoen broke in upon the old man's prattle with the generous
enthusiasm of his youth. . . . Trading was very good. But was the change that
would make them happy effected yet? The white man should be despoiled with a
strong hand! . . . He grew excited, spoke very loud, and his further discourse,
delivered with his hand on the hilt of his sword, dealt incoherently with the
honourable topics of throat cutting, fire-raising, and with the far-famed
valour of his ancestors.
Babalatchi remained
behind, alone with the greatness of his conceptions. The sagacious statesman of
Sambir sent a scornful glance after his noble protector and his noble
protector's friends, and then stood meditating about that future which to the
others seemed so assured. Not so to Babalatchi, who paid the penalty of his
wisdom by a vague sense of insecurity that kept sleep at arm's length from his
tired body. When he thought at last of leaving the waterside, it was only to
strike a path for himself and to creep along the fences, avoiding the middle of
the courtyard where small fires glimmered and winked as though the sinister
darkness there had reflected the stars of the serene heaven. He slunk past the
wicket-gate of Omar's enclosure, and crept on patiently along the light bamboo
palisade till he was stopped by the angle where it joined the heavy stockade of
Lakamba's private ground. Standing there, he could look over the fence and see
Omar's hut and the fire before its door. He could also see the shadow of two
human beings sitting between him and the red glow. A man and a woman. The sight
seemed to inspire the careworn sage with a frivolous desire to sing. It could
hardly be called a song; it was more in the nature of a recitative without any
rhythm, delivered rapidly but distinctly in a croaking and unsteady voice; and
if Babalatchi considered it a song, then it was a song with a purpose and,
perhaps for that reason, artistically defective. It had all the imperfections
of unskilful improvisation and its subject was gruesome. It told a tale of
shipwreck and of thirst, and of one brother killing another for the sake of a
gourd of water. A repulsive story which might have had a purpose but possessed
no moral whatever. Yet it must have pleased Babalatchi for he repeated it
twice, the second time even in louder tones than at first, causing a
disturbance amongst the white rice birds and the wild fruit-pigeons which
roosted on the boughs of the big tree growing in Omar's compound. There was in
the thick foliage above the singer's head a confused beating of wings, sleepy
remarks in bird language, a sharp stir of leaves. The forms by the fire moved;
the shadow of the woman altered its shape, and Babalatchi's song was cut short
abruptly by a fit of soft and persistent coughing. He did not try to resume his
efforts after that interruption, but went away stealthily to seek--if not
sleep--then, at least, repose.
AS SOON as Abdulla and
his companions had left the enclosure, Aïssa approached Willems and stood by
his side. He took no notice of her expectant attitude till she touched him
gently, when he turned furiously upon her and, tearing off her face-veil,
trampled upon it as though it had been a mortal enemy. She looked at him with
the faint smile of patient curiosity, with the puzzled interest of ignorance
watching the running of a complicated piece of machinery. After he had
exhausted his rage, he stood again severe and unbending looking down at the
fire, but the touch of her fingers at the nape of his neck effaced instantly
the hard lines round his mouth; his eyes wavered uneasily; his lips trembled
slightly. Starting with the unresisting rapidity of a particle of iron--which,
quiescent one moment, leaps in the next to a powerful magnet--he moved forward,
caught her in his arms and pressed her violently to his breast. He released her
as suddenly, and she stumbled a little, stepped back, breathed quickly through
her parted lips, and said in a tone of pleased reproof--
"O Fool-man! And
if you had killed me in your strong arms what would you have done?"
"You want to live
. . . and to run away from me again," he said gently. "Tell me--do
you?"
She moved towards him
with very short steps, her head a little on one side, hands on hips, with a
slight balancing of her body: an approach more tantalizing than an escape. He
looked on, eager--charmed. She spoke jestingly.
"What am I to say
to a man who has been away three days from me? Three!" she repeated,
holding up playfully three fingers before Willems' eyes. He snatched at the
hand, but she was on her guard and whisked it behind her back.
"No!" she
said. "I cannot be caught. But I will come. I am coming myself because I
like. Do not move. Do not touch me with your mighty hands, O child!"
As she spoke she made a
step nearer, then another. Willems did not stir. Pressing against him she stood
on tiptoe to look into his eyes, and her own seemed to grow bigger, glistening
and tender, appealing and promising. With that look she drew the man's soul
away from him through his immobile pupils, and from Willems' features the spark
of reason vanished under her gaze and was replaced by an appearance of physical
well-being, an ecstasy of the senses which had taken possession of his rigid
body; an ecstasy that drove out regrets, hesitation and doubt, and proclaimed
its terrible work by an appalling aspect of idiotic beatitude. He never stirred
a limb, hardly breathed, but stood in stiff immobility, absorbing the delight
of her close contact by every pore.
"Closer!
Closer!" he murmured.
Slowly she raised her
arms, put them over his shoulders, and clasping her hands at the back of his
neck, swung off the full length of her arms. Her head fell back, the eyelids
dropped slightly, and her thick hair hung straight down: a mass of ebony
touched by the red gleams of the fire. He stood unyielding under the strain, as
solid and motionless as one of the big trees of the surrounding forests; and
his eyes looked at the modelling of her chin, at the outline of her neck, at
the swelling lines of her bosom, with the famished and concentrated expression
of a starving man looking at food. She drew herself up to him and rubbed her
head against his cheek slowly and gently. He sighed. She, with her hands still
on his shoulders, glanced up at the placid stars and said--
"The night is half
gone. We shall finish it by this fire. By this fire you shall tell me all: your
words and Syed Abdulla's words; and listening to you I shall forget the three
days--because I am good. Tell me--am I good?"
He said "Yes"
dreamily, and she ran off towards the big house.
When she came back,
balancing a roll of fine mats on her head, he had replenished the fire and was
ready to help her in arranging a couch on the side of it nearest to the hut.
She sank down with a quick but gracefully controlled movement, and he threw
himself full length with impatient haste, as if he wished to forestall
somebody. She took his head on her knees, and when he felt her hands touching
his face, her fingers playing with his hair, he had an expression of being
taken possession of; he experienced a sense of peace, of rest, of happiness,
and of soothing delight. His hands strayed upwards about her neck, and he drew
her down so as to have her face above his. Then he whispered--"I wish I
could die like this--now!" She looked at him with her big sombre eyes, in
which there was no responsive light. His thought was so remote from her understanding
that she let the words pass by unnoticed, like the breath of the wind, like the
flight of a cloud. Woman though she was, she could not comprehend, in her
simplicity, the tremendous compliment of that speech, that whisper of deadly
happiness, so sincere, so spontaneous, coming so straight from the heart--like
every corruption. It was the voice of madness, of a delirious peace, of
happiness that is infamous, cowardly, and so exquisite that the debased mind
refuses to contemplate its termination: for to the victims of such happiness
the moment of its ceasing is the beginning afresh of that torture which is its
price.
With her brows slightly
knitted in the determined preoccupation of her own desires, she said--
"Now tell me all.
All the words spoken between you and Syed Abdulla."
Tell what? What words?
Her voice recalled back the consciousness that had departed under her touch,
and he became aware of the passing minutes every one of which was like a
reproach; of those minutes that falling, slow, reluctant, irresistible into the
past, marked his footsteps on the way to perdition. Not that he had any
conviction about it, any notion of the possible ending on that painful road. It
was an indistinct feeling, a threat of suffering like the confused warning of
coming disease, an inarticulate monition of evil made up of fear and pleasure,
of resignation and of revolt. He was ashamed of his state of mind. After all,
what was he afraid of? Were those scruples? Why that hesitation to think, to
speak of what he intended doing? Scruples were for imbeciles. His clear duty
was to make himself happy. Did he ever take an oath of fidelity to Lingard? No.
Well then--he would not let any interest of that old fool stand between Willems
and Willems' happiness. Happiness? Was he not, perchance, on a false track?
Happiness meant money. Much money. At least he had always thought so till he
had experienced those new sensations which . . .
Aïssa's question,
repeated impatiently, interrupted his musings, and looking up at her face
shining above him in the dim light of the fire he stretched his limbs
luxuriously and obedient to her desire, he spoke slowly and hardly above his
breath. She, with her head close to his lips, listened absorbed, interested, in
attentive immobility. The many noises of the great courtyard were hushed up
gradually by the sleep that stilled all voices and closed all eyes. Then
somebody droned out a song with a nasal drawl at the end of every verse. He
stirred. She put her hand suddenly on his lips and sat upright. There was a
feeble coughing, a rustle of leaves, and then a complete silence took
possession of the land; a silence cold, mournful, profound; more like death
than peace; more hard to bear than the fiercest tumult. As soon as she removed
her hand he hastened to speak, so insupportable to him was that stillness
perfect and absolute in which his thoughts seemed to ring with the loudness of
shouts.
"Who was there
making that noise?" he asked.
"I do not know. He
is gone now," she answered, hastily. "Tell me, you will not return to
your people; not without me. Not with me. Do you promise?"
"I have promised
already. I have no people of my own. Have I not told you, that you are
everybody to me?"
"Ah, yes,"
she said, slowly, "but I like to hear you say that again--every day, and
every night, whenever I ask; and never to be angry because I ask. I am afraid
of white women who are shameless and have fierce eyes." She scanned his
features close for a moment and added:
"Are they very
beautiful? They must be."
"I do not
know," he whispered, thoughtfully. "And if I ever did know, looking
at you I have forgotten."
"Forgotten! And
for three days and two nights you have forgotten me also! Why? Why were you
angry with me when I spoke at first of Tuan Abdulla, in the days when we lived
beside the brook? You remembered somebody then. Somebody in the land whence you
come. Your tongue is false. You are white indeed, and your heart is full of
deception. I know it. And yet I cannot help believing you when you talk of your
love for me. But I am afraid!"
He felt flattered and
annoyed by her vehemence, and said--
"Well, I am with
you now. I did come back. And it was you that went away."
"When you have
helped Abdulla against the Rajah Laut, who is the first of white men, I shall
not be afraid any more," she whispered.
"You must believe
what I say when I tell you that there never was another woman; that there is
nothing for me to regret, and nothing but my enemies to remember."
"Where do you come
from?" she said, impulsive and inconsequent, in a passionate whisper.
"What is that land beyond the great sea from which you come? A land of
lies and of evil from which nothing but misfortune ever comes to us--who are not
white. Did you not at first ask me to go there with you? That is why I went
away."
"I shall never ask
you again."
"And there is no
woman waiting for you there?"
"No!" said
Willems, firmly.
She bent over him. Her
lips hovered above his face and her long hair brushed his cheeks.
"You taught me the
love of your people which is of the Devil," she murmured, and bending
still lower, she said faintly, "Like this?"
"Yes, like
this!" he answered very low, in a voice that trembled slightly with
eagerness; and she pressed suddenly her lips to his while he closed his eyes in
an ecstasy of delight.
There was a long
interval of silence. She stroked his head with gentle touches, and he lay
dreamily, perfectly happy but for the annoyance of an indistinct vision of a
well-known figure; a man going away from him and diminishing in a long
perspective of fantastic trees, whose every leaf was an eye looking after that
man, who walked away growing smaller, but never getting out of sight for all
his steady progress. He felt a desire to see him vanish, a hurried impatience
of his disappearance, and he watched for it with a careful and irksome effort.
There was something familiar about that figure. Why! Himself! He gave a sudden
start and opened his eyes, quivering with the emotion of that quick return from
so far, of finding himself back by the fire with the rapidity of a flash of
lightning. It had been half a dream; he had slumbered in her arms for a few
seconds. Only the beginning of a dream-- nothing more. But it was some time before
he recovered from the shock of seeing himself go away so deliberately, so
definitely, so unguardedly; and going away--where? Now, if he had not woke up
in time he would never have come back again from there; from whatever place he
was going to. He felt indignant. It was like an evasion, like a prisoner
breaking his parole--that thing slinking off stealthily while he slept. He was
very indignant, and was also astonished at the absurdity of his own emotions.
She felt him tremble,
and murmuring tender words, pressed his head to her breast. Again he felt very
peaceful with a peace that was as complete as the silence round them. He
muttered--
"You are tired, Aïssa."
She answered so low
that it was like a sigh shaped into faint words.
"I shall watch
your sleep, O child!"
He lay very quiet, and
listened to the beating of her heart. That sound, light, rapid, persistent, and
steady; her very life beating against his cheek, gave him a clear perception of
secure ownership, strengthened his belief in his possession of that human
being, was like an assurance of the vague felicity of the future. There were no
regrets, no doubts, no hesitation now. Had there ever been? All that seemed far
away, ages ago--as unreal and pale as the fading memory of some delirium. All
the anguish, suffering, strife of the past days; the humiliation and anger of
his downfall; all that was an infamous nightmare, a thing born in sleep to be
forgotten and leave no trace--and true life was this: this dreamy immobility
with his head against her heart that beat so steadily.
He was broad awake now,
with that tingling wakefulness of the tired body which succeeds to the few
refreshing seconds of irresistible sleep, and his wide- open eyes looked
absently at the doorway of Omar's hut. The reed walls glistened in the light of
the fire, the smoke of which, thin and blue, drifted slanting in a succession
of rings and spirals across the doorway, whose empty blackness seemed to him
impenetrable and enigmatical like a curtain hiding vast spaces full of
unexpected surprises. This was only his fancy, but it was absorbing enough to
make him accept the sudden appearance of a head, coming out of the gloom, as
part of his idle fantasy or as the beginning of another short dream, of another
vagary of his overtired brain. A face with drooping eyelids, old, thin, and
yellow, above the scattered white of a long beard that touched the earth. A
head without a body, only a foot above the ground, turning slightly from side
to side on the edge of the circle of light as if to catch the radiating heat of
the fire on either cheek in succession. He watched it in passive amazement,
growing distinct, as if coming nearer to him, and the confused outlines of a
body crawling on all fours came out, creeping inch by inch towards the fire,
with a silent and all but imperceptible movement. He was astounded at the
appearance of that blind head dragging that crippled body behind, without a
sound, without a change in the composure of the sightless face, which was plain
one second, blurred the next in the play of the light that drew it to itself
steadily. A mute face with a kriss between its lips. This was no dream. Omar's
face. But why? What was he after?
He was too indolent in
the happy languor of the moment to answer the question. It darted through his
brain and passed out, leaving him free to listen again to the beating of her
heart; to that precious and delicate sound which filled the quiet immensity of
the night. Glancing upwards he saw the motionless head of the woman looking down
at him in a tender gleam of liquid white between the long eyelashes, whose
shadow rested on the soft curve of her cheek; and under the caress of that
look, the uneasy wonder and the obscure fear of that apparition, crouching and
creeping in turns towards the fire that was its guide, were lost--were drowned
in the quietude of all his senses, as pain is drowned in the flood of drowsy
serenity that follows upon a dose of opium.
He altered the position
of his head by ever so little, and now could see easily that apparition which
he had seen a minute before and had nearly forgotten already. It had moved
closer, gliding and noiseless like the shadow of some nightmare, and now it was
there, very near, motionless and still as if listening; one hand and one knee advanced;
the neck stretched out and the head turned full towards the fire. He could see
the emaciated face, the skin shiny over the prominent bones, the black shadows
of the hollow temples and sunken cheeks, and the two patches of blackness over
the eyes, over those eyes that were dead and could not see. What was the
impulse which drove out this blind cripple into the night to creep and crawl
towards that fire? He looked at him, fascinated, but the face, with its
shifting lights and shadows, let out nothing, closed and impenetrable like a
walled door.
Omar raised himself to
a kneeling posture and sank on his heels, with his hands hanging down before
him. Willems, looking out of his dreamy numbness, could see plainly the kriss
between the thin lips, a bar across the face; the handle on one side where the
polished wood caught a red gleam from the fire and the thin line of the blade
running to a dull black point on the other. He felt an inward shock, which left
his body passive in Aïssa's embrace, but filled his breast with a tumult of
powerless fear; and he perceived suddenly that it was his own death that was
groping towards him; that it was the hate of himself and the hate of her love
for him which drove this helpless wreck of a once brilliant and resolute pirate,
to attempt a desperate deed that would be the glorious and supreme consolation
of an unhappy old age. And while he looked, paralyzed with dread, at the father
who had resumed his cautious advance--blind like fate, persistent like
destiny--he listened with greedy eagerness to the heart of the daughter beating
light, rapid, and steady against his head.
He was in the grip of
horrible fear; of a fear whose cold hand robs its victim of all will and of all
power; of all wish to escape, to resist, or to move; which destroys hope and
despair alike, and holds the empty and useless carcass as if in a vise under
the coming stroke. It was not the fear of death--he had faced danger before--it
was not even the fear of that particular form of death. It was not the fear of
the end, for he knew that the end would not come then. A movement, a leap, a
shout would save him from the feeble hand of the blind old man, from that hand
that even now was, with cautious sweeps along the ground, feeling for his body
in the darkness. It was the un- reasoning fear of this glimpse into the unknown
things, into those motives, impulses, desires he had ignored, but that had
lived in the breasts of despised men, close by his side, and were revealed to
him for a second, to be hidden again behind the black mists of doubt and
deception. It was not death that frightened him: it was the horror of
bewildered life where he could understand nothing and nobody round him; where
he could guide, control, comprehend nothing and no one--not even himself.
He felt a touch on his
side. That contact, lighter than the caress of a mother's hand on the cheek of
a sleeping child, had for him the force of a crushing blow. Omar had crept
close, and now, kneeling above him, held the kriss in one hand while the other
skimmed over his jacket up towards his breast in gentle touches; but the blind
face, still turned to the heat of the fire, was set and immovable in its aspect
of stony indifference to things it could not hope to see. With an effort
Willems took his eyes off the deathlike mask and turned them up to Aïssa's
head. She sat motionless as if she had been part of the sleeping earth, then
suddenly he saw her big sombre eyes open out wide in a piercing stare and felt
the convulsive pressure of her hands pinning his arms along his body. A second
dragged itself out, slow and bitter, like a day of mourning; a second full of
regret and grief for that faith in her which took its flight from the shattered
rums of his trust. She was holding him! She too! He felt her heart give a great
leap, his head slipped down on her knees, he closed his eyes and there was
nothing. Nothing! It was as if she had died; as though her heart had leaped out
into the night, abandoning him, defenceless and alone, in an empty world.
His head struck the
ground heavily as she flung him aside in her sudden rush. He lay as if stunned,
face up and, daring not move, did not see the struggle, but heard the piercing
shriek of mad fear, her low angry words; another shriek dying out in a moan.
When he got up at last he looked at Aïssa kneeling over her father, he saw her
bent back in the effort of holding him down, Omar's contorted limbs, a hand
thrown up above her head and her quick movement grasping the wrist. He made an
impulsive step forward, but she turned a wild face to him and called out over
her shoulder--
"Keep back! Do not
come near! Do not. . . ."
And he stopped short,
his arms hanging lifelessly by his side, as if those words had changed him into
stone. She was afraid of his possible violence, but in the unsettling of all
his convictions he was struck with the frightful thought that she preferred to
kill her father all by herself; and the last stage of their struggle, at which
he looked as though a red fog had filled his eyes, loomed up with an unnatural
ferocity, with a sinister meaning; like something monstrous and depraved,
forcing its complicity upon him under the cover of that awful night. He was
horrified and grateful; drawn irresistibly to her--and ready to run away. He
could not move at first--then he did not want to stir. He wanted to see what
would happen. He saw her lift, with a tremendous effort, the apparently
lifeless body into the hut, and remained standing, after they disappeared, with
the vivid image in his eyes of that head swaying on her shoulder, the lower jaw
hanging down, collapsed, passive, meaningless, like the head of a corpse.
Then after a while he
heard her voice speaking inside, harshly, with an agitated abruptness of tone;
and in answer there were groans and broken murmurs of exhaustion. She spoke
louder. He heard her saying violently--"No! No! Never!"
And again a plaintive
murmur of entreaty as of some one begging for a supreme favour, with a last
breath. Then she said--
"Never! I would
sooner strike it into my own heart."
She came out, stood
panting for a short moment in the doorway, and then stepped into the firelight.
Behind her, through the darkness came the sound of words calling the vengeance
of heaven on her head, rising higher, shrill, strained, repeating the curse
over and over again--till the voice cracked in a passionate shriek that died
out into hoarse muttering ending with a deep and prolonged sigh. She stood
facing Willems, one hand behind her back, the other raised in a gesture
compelling attention, and she listened in that attitude till all was still
inside the hut. Then she made another step forward and her hand dropped slowly.
"Nothing but
misfortune," she whispered, absently, to herself. "Nothing but
misfortune to us who are not white." The anger and excitement died out of
her face, and she looked straight at Willems with an intense and mournful gaze.
He recovered his senses
and his power of speech with a sudden start.
"Aïssa," he
exclaimed, and the words broke out through his lips with hurried nervousness.
"Aïssa! How can I live here? Trust me. Believe in me. Let us go away from
here. Go very far away! Very far; you and I!"
He did not stop to ask
himself whether he could escape, and how, and where. He was carried away by the
flood of hate, disgust, and contempt of a white man for that blood which is not
his blood, for that race which is not his race; for the brown skins; for the
hearts false like the sea, blacker than night. This feeling of repulsion
overmastered his reason in a clear conviction of the impossibility for him to
live with her people. He urged her passionately to fly with him because out of
all that abhorred crowd he wanted this one woman, but wanted her away from
them, away from that race of slaves and cut-throats from which she sprang. He
wanted her for himself--far from everybody, in some safe and dumb solitude. And
as he spoke his anger and contempt rose, his hate became almost fear; and his
desire of her grew immense, burning, illogical and merciless; crying to him
through all his senses; louder than his hate, stronger than his fear, deeper
than his contempt--irresistible and certain like death itself.
Standing at a little
distance, just within the light-- but on the threshold of that darkness from
which she had come--she listened, one hand still behind her back, the other arm
stretched out with the hand half open as if to catch the fleeting words that
rang around her, passionate, menacing, imploring, but all tinged with the
anguish of his suffering, all hurried by the impatience that gnawed his breast.
And while she listened she felt a slowing down of her heart-beats as the
meaning of his appeal grew clearer before her indignant eyes, as she saw with
rage and pain the edifice of her love, her own work, crumble slowly to pieces,
destroyed by that man's fears, by that man's falseness. Her memory recalled the
days by the brook when she had listened to other words--to other thoughts--to
promises and to pleadings for other things, which came from that man's lips at
the bidding of her look or her smile, at the nod of her head, at the whisper of
her lips. Was there then in his heart something else than her image, other
desires than the desires of her love, other fears than the fear of losing her?
How could that be? Had she grown ugly or old in a moment? She was appalled,
surprised and angry with the anger of unexpected humiliation; and her eyes
looked fixedly, sombre and steady, at that man born in the land of violence and
of evil wherefrom nothing but misfortune comes to those who are not white.
Instead of thinking of her caresses, instead of forgetting all the world in her
embrace, he was thinking yet of his people; of that people that steals every
land, masters every sea, that knows no mercy and no truth-- knows nothing but
its own strength. O man of strong arm and of false heart! Go with him to a far
country, be lost in the throng of cold eyes and false hearts-- lose him there!
Never! He was mad--mad with fear; but he should not escape her! She would keep
him here a slave and a master; here where he was alone with her; where he must
live for her--or die. She had a right to his love which was of her making, to
the love that was in him now, while he spoke those words without sense. She
must put between him and other white men a barrier of hate. He must not only
stay, but he must also keep his promise to Abdulla, the fulfilment of which
would make her safe.
"Aïssa, let us go!
With you by my side I would attack them with my naked hands. Or no! Tomorrow we
shall be outside, on board Abdulla's ship. You shall come with me and then I
could . . . If the ship went ashore by some chance, then we could steal a canoe
and escape in the confusion. . . . You are not afraid of the sea . . . of the
sea that would give me freedom . . ."
He was approaching her
gradually with extended arms, while he pleaded ardently in incoherent words
that ran over and tripped each other in the extreme eagerness of his speech.
She stepped back, keeping her distance, her eyes on his face, watching on it
the play of his doubts and of his hopes with a piercing gaze, that seemed to
search out the innermost recesses of his thought; and it was as if she had
drawn slowly the darkness round her, wrapping herself in its undulating folds
that made her indistinct and vague. He followed her step by step till at last
they both stopped, facing each other under the big tree of the enclosure. The
solitary exile of the forests, great, motionless and solemn in his abandonment,
left alone by the life of ages that had been pushed away from him by those
pigmies that crept at his foot, towered high and straight above their heads. He
seemed to look on, dispassionate and imposing, in his lonely greatness,
spreading his branches wide in a gesture of lofty protection, as if to hide
them in the sombre shelter of innumerable leaves; as if moved by the disdainful
compassion of the strong, by the scornful pity of an aged giant, to screen this
struggle of two human hearts from the cold scrutiny of glittering stars.
The last cry of his
appeal to her mercy rose loud, vibrated under the sombre canopy, darted among
the boughs startling the white birds that slept wing to wing--and died without
an echo, strangled in the dense mass of unstirring leaves. He could not see her
face, but he heard her sighs and the distracted murmur of indistinct words.
Then, as he listened holding his breath, she exclaimed suddenly--
"Have you heard
him? He has cursed me because I love you. You brought me suffering and strife--
and his curse. And now you want to take me far away where I would lose you,
lose my life; because your love is my life now. What else is there? Do not
move," she cried violently, as he stirred a little-- "do not speak!
Take this! Sleep in peace!"
He saw a shadowy
movement of her arm. Some- thing whizzed past and struck the ground behind him,
close to the fire. Instinctively he turned round to look at it. A kriss without
its sheath lay by the embers; a sinuous dark object, looking like something
that had been alive and was now crushed, dead and very inoffensive; a black
wavy outline very distinct and still in the dull red glow. Without thinking he
moved to pick it up, stooping with the sad and humble movement of a beggar
gathering the alms flung into the dust of the roadside. Was this the answer to
his pleading, to the hot and living words that came from his heart? Was this
the answer thrown at him like an insult, that thing made of wood and iron,
insignificant and venomous, fragile and deadly? He held it by the blade and
looked at the handle stupidly for a moment before he let it fall again at his
feet; and when he turned round he faced only the night:--the night immense,
profound and quiet; a sea of darkness in which she had disappeared without
leaving a trace.
He moved forward with
uncertain steps, putting out both his hands before him with the anguish of a
man blinded suddenly.
"Aïssa!" he
cried--"come to me at once."
He peered and listened,
but saw nothing, heard nothing. After a while the solid blackness seemed to
wave before his eyes like a curtain disclosing movements but hiding forms, and
he heard light and hurried footsteps, then the short clatter of the gate
leading to Lakamba's private enclosure. He sprang forward and brought up
against the rough timber in time to hear the words, "Quick! Quick!"
and the sound of the wooden bar dropped on the other side, securing the gate.
With his arms thrown up, the palms against the paling, he slid down in a heap
on the ground.
"Aïssa," he
said, pleadingly, pressing his lips to a chink between the stakes. "Aïssa,
do you hear me? Come back! I will do what you want, give you all you desire--if
I have to set the whole Sambir on fire and put that fire out with blood. Only
come back. Now! At once! Are you there? Do you hear me? Aïssa!"
On the other side there
were startled whispers of feminine voices; a frightened little laugh suddenly
interrupted; some woman's admiring murmur--"This is brave talk!" Then
after a short silence Aïssa cried--
"Sleep in
peace--for the time of your going is near. Now I am afraid of you. Afraid of
your fear. When you return with Tuan Abdulla you shall be great. You will find
me here. And there will be nothing but love. Nothing else!--Always!--Till we
die!"
He listened to the
shuffle of footsteps going away, and staggered to his feet, mute with the
excess of his passionate anger against that being so savage and so charming;
loathing her, himself, everybody he had ever known; the earth, the sky, the
very air he drew into his oppressed chest; loathing it because it made him
live, loathing her because she made him suffer. But he could not leave that
gate through which she had passed. He wandered a little way off, then swerved
round, came back and fell down again by the stockade only to rise suddenly in
another attempt to break away from the spell that held him, that brought him
back there, dumb, obedient and furious. And under the immobilized gesture of
lofty protection in the branches outspread wide above his head, under the high
branches where white birds slept wing to wing in the shelter of countless
leaves, he tossed like a grain of dust in a whirlwind--sinking and
rising--round and round--always near that gate. All through the languid
stillness of that night he fought with the impalpable; he fought with the
shadows, with the darkness, with the silence. He fought without a sound,
striking futile blows, dashing from side to side; obstinate, hopeless, and
always beaten back; like a man bewitched within the invisible sweep of a magic
circle.
"YES! Cat, dog,
anything that can scratch or bite; as long as it is harmful enough and mangy
enough. A sick tiger would make you happy--of all things. A half-dead tiger
that you could weep over and palm upon some poor devil in your power, to tend
and nurse for you. Never mind the consequences--to the poor devil. Let him be
mangled or eaten up, of course! You haven't any pity to spare for the victims
of your infernal charity. Not you! Your tender heart bleeds only for what is
poisonous and deadly. I curse the day when you set your benevolent eyes on him.
I curse it . . ."
"Now then! Now
then!" growled Lingard in his moustache. Almayer, who had talked himself
up to the choking point, drew a long breath and went on--
"Yes! It has been
always so. Always. As far back as I can remember. Don't you recollect? What
about that half-starved dog you brought on board in Bankok in your arms. In
your arms by . . . ! It went mad next day and bit the serang. You don't mean to
say you have forgotten? The best serang you ever had! You said so yourself
while you were helping us to lash him down to the chain-cable, just before he
died in his fits. Now, didn't you? Two wives and ever so many children the man
left. That was your doing. . . . And when you went out of your way and risked
your ship to rescue some Chinamen from a water-logged junk in Formosa Straits,
that was also a clever piece of business. Wasn't it? Those damned Chinamen rose
on you before forty- eight hours. They were cut-throats, those poor fishermen.
You knew they were cut-throats before you made up your mind to run down on a
lee shore in a gale of wind to save them. A mad trick! If they hadn't been
scoundrels--hopeless scoundrels--you would not have put your ship in jeopardy
for them, I know. You would not have risked the lives of your crew--that crew
you loved so--and your own life. Wasn't that foolish! And, besides, you were
not honest. Suppose you had been drowned? I would have been in a pretty mess
then, left alone here with that adopted daughter of yours. Your duty was to
myself first. I married that girl because you promised to make my fortune. You
know you did! And then three months afterwards you go and do that mad
trick--for a lot of Chinamen too. Chinamen! You have no morality. I might have
been ruined for the sake of those murderous scoundrels that, after all, had to
be driven overboard after killing ever so many of your crew--of your beloved
crew! Do you call that honest?"
"Well, well!"
muttered Lingard, chewing nervously the stump of his cheroot that had gone out
and looking at Almayer--who stamped wildly about the verandah --much as a
shepherd might look at a pet sheep in his obedient flock turning unexpectedly
upon him in enraged revolt. He seemed disconcerted, contemptuously angry yet
somewhat amused; and also a little hurt as if at some bitter jest at his own
expense. Almayer stopped suddenly, and crossing his arms on his breast, bent
his body forward and went on speaking.
"I might have been
left then in an awkward hole-- all on account of your absurd disregard for your
safety --yet I bore no grudge. I knew your weaknesses. But now--when I think of
it! Now we are ruined. Ruined! Ruined! My poor little Nina. Ruined!"
He slapped his thighs
smartly, walked with small steps this way and that, seized a chair, planted it
with a bang before Lingard, and sat down staring at the old seaman with haggard
eyes. Lingard, returning his stare steadily, dived slowly into various pockets,
fished out at last a box of matches and proceeded to light his cheroot
carefully, rolling it round and round between his lips, without taking his gaze
for a moment off the distressed Almayer. Then from behind a cloud of tobacco
smoke he said calmly--
"If you had been
in trouble as often as I have, my boy, you wouldn't carry on so. I have been
ruined more than once. Well, here I am."
"Yes, here you
are," interrupted Almayer. "Much good it is to me. Had you been here
a month ago it would have been of some use. But now! . . You might as well be a
thousand miles off."
"You scold like a
drunken fish-wife," said Lingard, serenely. He got up and moved slowly to
the front rail of the verandah. The floor shook and the whole house vibrated
under his heavy step. For a moment he stood with his back to Almayer, looking
out on the river and forest of the east bank, then turned round and gazed
mildly down upon him.
"It's very lonely
this morning here. Hey?" he said.
Almayer lifted up his
head.
"Ah! you notice
it--don't you? I should think it is lonely! Yes, Captain Lingard, your day is
over in Sambir. Only a month ago this verandah would have been full of people
coming to greet you. Fellows would be coming up those steps grinning and
salaaming--to you and to me. But our day is over. And not by my fault either.
You can't say that. It's all the doing of that pet rascal of yours. Ah! He is a
beauty! You should have seen him leading that hellish crowd. You would have
been proud of your old favourite."
"Smart fellow
that," muttered Lingard, thought- fully. Almayer jumped up with a shriek.
"And that's all
you have to say! Smart fellow! O Lord!"
"Don't make a show
of yourself. Sit down. Let's talk quietly. I want to know all about it. So he
led?"
"He was the soul
of the whole thing. He piloted Abdulla's ship in. He ordered everything and
everybody," said Almayer, who sat down again, with a resigned air.
"When did it happen--exactly?"
"On the sixteenth
I heard the first rumours of Abdulla's ship being in the river; a thing I
refused to believe at first. Next day I could not doubt any more. There was a
great council held openly in Lakamba's place where almost everybody in Sambir
attended. On the eighteenth the Lord of the Isles was anchored in Sambir reach,
abreast of my house. Let's see. Six weeks to-day, exactly."
"And all that
happened like this? All of a sudden. You never heard anything--no warning.
Nothing. Never had an idea that something was up? Come, Almayer!"
"Heard! Yes, I
used to hear something every day. Mostly lies. Is there anything else in
Sambir?"
"You might not
have believed them," observed Lingard. "In fact you ought not to have
believed everything that was told to you, as if you had been a green hand on
his first voyage."
Almayer moved in his
chair uneasily.
"That scoundrel
came here one day," he said. "He had been away from the house for a
couple of months living with that woman. I only heard about him now and then
from Patalolo's people when they came over. Well one day, about noon, he appeared
in this courtyard, as if he had been jerked up from hell-where he
belongs."
Lingard took his
cheroot out, and, with his mouth full of white smoke that oozed out through his
parted lips, listened, attentive. After a short pause Almayer went on, looking
at the floor moodily--
"I must say he
looked awful. Had a bad bout of the ague probably. The left shore is very
unhealthy. Strange that only the breadth of the river . . ."
He dropped off into
deep thoughtfulness as if he had forgotten his grievances in a bitter
meditation upon the unsanitary condition of the virgin forests on the left
bank. Lingard took this opportunity to expel the smoke in a mighty expiration
and threw the stump of his cheroot over his shoulder.
"Go on," he
said, after a while. "He came to see you . . ."
"But it wasn't
unhealthy enough to finish him, worse luck!" went on Almayer, rousing
himself, "and, as I said, he turned up here with his brazen impudence. He
bullied me, he threatened vaguely. He wanted to scare me, to blackmail me. Me!
And, by heaven--he said you would approve. You! Can you conceive such
impudence? I couldn't exactly make out what he was driving at. Had I known, I
would have approved him. Yes! With a bang on the head. But how could I guess
that he knew enough to pilot a ship through the entrance you always said was so
difficult. And, after all, that was the only danger. I could deal with anybody
here--but when Abdulla came. . . . That barque of his is armed. He carries
twelve brass six- pounders, and about thirty men. Desperate beggars. Sumatra
men, from Deli and Acheen. Fight all day and ask for more in the evening. That
kind."
"I know, I
know," said Lingard, impatiently.
"Of course, then,
they were cheeky as much as you please after he anchored abreast of our jetty.
Willems brought her up himself in the best berth. I could see him from this
verandah standing forward, together with the half-caste master. And that woman
was there too. Close to him. I heard they took her on board off Lakamba's
place. Willems said he would not go higher without her. Stormed and raged.
Frightened them, I believe. Abdulla had to interfere. She came off alone in a
canoe, and no sooner on deck than she fell at his feet before all hands,
embraced his knees, wept, raved, begged his pardon. Why? I wonder. Every- body
in Sambir is talking of it. They never heard tell or saw anything like it. I
have all this from Ali, who goes about in the settlement and brings me the
news. I had better know what is going on--hadn't I? From what I can make out, they--he
and that woman--are looked upon as something mysterious--beyond comprehension.
Some think them mad. They live alone with an old woman in a house outside
Lakamba's campong and are greatly respected--or feared, I should say rather. At
least, he is. He is very violent. She knows nobody, sees nobody, will speak to
nobody but him. Never leaves him for a moment. It's the talk of the place.
There are other rumours. From what I hear I suspect that Lakamba and Abdulla
are tired of him. There's also talk of him going away in the Lord of the
Isles--when she leaves here for the southward--as a kind of Abdulla's agent. At
any rate, he must take the ship out. The half-caste is not equal to it as
yet."
Lingard, who had
listened absorbed till then, began now to walk with measured steps. Almayer
ceased talking and followed him with his eyes as he paced up and down with a
quarter-deck swing, tormenting and twisting his long white beard, his face
perplexed and thoughtful.
"So he came to you
first of all, did he?" asked Lingard, without stopping.
"Yes. I told you
so. He did come. Came to extort money, goods--I don't know what else. Wanted to
set up as a trader--the swine! I kicked his hat into the courtyard, and he went
after it, and that was the last of him till he showed up with Abdulla. How
could I know that he could do harm in that way? Or in any way at that! Any
local rising I could put down easy with my own men and with Patalolo's
help."
"Oh! yes.
Patalolo. No good. Eh? Did you try him at all?"
"Didn't I!" exclaimed
Almayer. "I went to see him myself on the twelfth. That was four days
before Abdulla entered the river. In fact, same day Willems tried to get at me.
I did feel a little uneasy then. Patalolo assured me that there was no human
being that did not love me in Sambir. Looked as wise as an owl. Told me not to
listen to the lies of wicked people from down the river. He was alluding to
that man Bulangi, who lives up the sea reach, and who had sent me word that a
strange ship was anchored outside--which, of course, I repeated to Patalolo. He
would not believe. Kept on mumbling 'No! No! No!' like an old parrot, his head
all of a tremble, all beslobbered with betel-nut juice. I thought there was
something queer about him. Seemed so restless, and as if in a hurry to get rid
of me. Well. Next day that one-eyed malefactor who lives with Lakamba--what's
his name--Babalatchi, put in an appearance here! Came about mid-day, casually
like, and stood there on this verandah chatting about one thing and another.
Asking when I expected you, and so on. Then, incidentally, he mentioned that
they --his master and himself--were very much bothered by a ferocious white
man--my friend--who was hanging about that woman--Omar's daughter. Asked my
advice. Very deferential and proper. I told him the white man was not my
friend, and that they had better kick him out. Whereupon he went away
salaaming, and protesting his friendship and his master's goodwill. Of course I
know now the infernal nigger came to spy and to talk over some of my men.
Anyway, eight were missing at the evening muster. Then I took alarm. Did not
dare to leave my house unguarded. You know what my wife is, don't you? And I
did not care to take the child with me--it being late--so I sent a message to
Patalolo to say that we ought to consult; that there were rumours and
uneasiness in the settlement. Do you know what answer I got?"
Lingard stopped short
in his walk before Almayer, who went on, after an impressive pause, with
growing animation.
"All brought it:
'The Rajah sends a friend's greeting, and does not understand the message.'
That was all. Not a word more could Ali get out of him. I could see that Ali
was pretty well scared. He hung about, arranging my hammock--one thing and
another. Then just before going away he mentioned that the watergate of the
Rajah's place was heavily barred, but that he could see only very few men about
the courtyard. Finally he said, 'There is darkness in our Rajah's house, but no
sleep. Only darkness and fear and the wailing of women.' Cheerful, wasn't it?
It made me feel cold down my back somehow. After Ali slipped away I stood
here--by this table, and listened to the shouting and drumming in the
settlement. Racket enough for twenty weddings. It was a little past midnight
then."
Again Almayer stopped
in his narrative with an abrupt shutting of lips, as if he had said all that
there was to tell, and Lingard stood staring at him, pensive and silent. A big
bluebottle fly flew in recklessly into the cool verandah, and darted with loud
buzzing between the two men. Lingard struck at it with his hat. The fly
swerved, and Almayer dodged his head out of the way. Then Lingard aimed another
ineffectual blow; Almayer jumped up and waved his arms about. The fly buzzed
desperately, and the vibration of minute wings sounded in the peace of the
early morning like a far-off string orchestra accompanying the hollow,
determined stamping of the two men, who, with heads thrown back and arms
gyrating on high, or again bending low with infuriated lunges, were intent upon
killing the intruder. But suddenly the buzz died out in a thin thrill away in
the open space of the courtyard, leaving Lingard and Almayer standing face to
face in the fresh silence of the young day, looking very puzzled and idle,
their arms hanging uselessly by their sides--like men disheartened by some
portentous failure.
"Look at
that!" muttered Lingard. "Got away after all."
"Nuisance,"
said Almayer in the same tone. "River- side is overrun with them. This
house is badly placed . . . mosquitos . . . and these big flies . . . . last
week stung Nina . . . been ill four days . . . poor child. . . . I wonder what such
damned things are made for!"
AFTER a long silence,
during which Almayer had moved towards the table and sat down, his head between
his hands, staring straight before him, Lingard, who had recommenced walking,
cleared his throat and said--
"What was it you
were saying?"
"Ah! Yes! You
should have seen this settlement that night. I don't think anybody went to bed.
I walked down to the point, and could see them. They had a big bonfire in the
palm grove, and the talk went on there till the morning. When I came back here
and sat in the dark verandah in this quiet house I felt so frightfully lonely
that I stole in and took the child out of her cot and brought her here into my
hammock. If it hadn't been for her I am sure I would have gone mad; I felt so
utterly alone and helpless. Remember, I hadn't heard from you for four months.
Didn't know whether you were alive or dead. Patalolo would have nothing to do
with me. My own men were deserting me like rats do a sinking hulk. That was a
black night for me, Captain Lingard. A black night as I sat here not knowing
what would happen next. They were so excited and rowdy that I really feared
they would come and burn the house over my head. I went and brought my
revolver. Laid it loaded on the table. There were such awful yells now and
then. Luckily the child slept through it, and seeing her so pretty and peaceful
steadied me somehow. Couldn't believe there was any violence in this world,
looking at her lying so quiet and so unconscious of what went on. But it was
very hard. Everything was at an end. You must understand that on that night
there was no government in Sambir. Nothing to restrain those fellows. Patalolo
had collapsed. I was abandoned by my own people, and all that lot could vent
their spite on me if they wanted. They know no gratitude. How many times
haven't I saved this settlement from starvation? Absolute starvation. Only
three months ago I distributed again a lot of rice on credit. There was nothing
to eat in this infernal place. They came begging on their knees. There isn't a
man in Sambir, big or little, who is not in debt to Lingard & Co. Not one.
You ought to be satisfied. You always said that was the right policy for us.
Well, I carried it out. Ah! Captain Lingard, a policy like that should be backed
by loaded rifles . . ."
"You had
them!" exclaimed Lingard in the midst of his promenade, that went on more
rapid as Almayer talked: the headlong tramp of a man hurrying on to do
something violent. The verandah was full of dust, oppressive and choking, which
rose under the old seaman's feet, and made Almayer cough again and again.
"Yes, I had!
Twenty. And not a finger to pull a trigger. It's easy to talk," he
spluttered, his face very red.
Lingard dropped into a
chair, and leaned back with one hand stretched out at length upon the table,
the other thrown over the back of his seat. The dust settled, and the sun
surging above the forest flooded the verandah with a clear light. Almayer got
up and busied himself in lowering the split rattan screens that hung between
the columns of the verandah.
"Phew!" said
Lingard, "it will be a hot day. That's right, my boy. Keep the sun out. We
don't want to be roasted alive here."
Almayer came back, sat
down, and spoke very calmly--
"In the morning I
went across to see Patalolo. I took the child with me, of course. I found the
watergate barred, and had to walk round through the bushes. Patalolo received
me lying on the floor, in the dark, all the shutters closed. I could get
nothing out of him but lamentations and groans. He said you must be dead. That
Lakamba was coming now with Abdulla's guns to kill everybody. Said he did not
mind being killed, as he was an old man, but that the wish of his heart was to
make a pilgrimage. He was tired of men's ingratitude--he had no heirs--he
wanted to go to Mecca and die there. He would ask Abdulla to let him go. Then
he abused Lakamba--between sobs-- and you, a little. You prevented him from
asking for a flag that would have been respected--he was right there --and now
when his enemies were strong he was weak, and you were not there to help him.
When I tried to put some heart into him, telling him he had four big guns --you
know the brass six-pounders you left here last year--and that I would get
powder, and that, perhaps, together we could make head against Lakamba, he
simply howled at me. No matter which way he turned --he shrieked--the white men
would be the death of him, while he wanted only to be a pilgrim and be at
peace. My belief is," added Almayer, after a short pause, and fixing a
dull stare upon Lingard, "that the old fool saw this thing coming for a
long time, and was not only too frightened to do anything himself, but actually
too scared to let you or me know of his suspicions. Another of your particular
pets! Well! You have a lucky hand, I must say!"
Lingard struck a sudden
blow on the table with his clenched hand. There was a sharp crack of splitting
wood. Almayer started up violently, then fell back in his chair and looked at
the table.
"There!" he
said, moodily, "you don't know your own strength. This table is completely
ruined. The only table I had been able to save from my wife. By and by I will
have to eat squatting on the floor like a native."
Lingard laughed
heartily. "Well then, don't nag at me like a woman at a drunken
husband!" He became very serious after awhile, and added, "If it
hadn't been for the loss of the Flash I would have been here three months ago,
and all would have been well. No use crying over that. Don't you be uneasy,
Kaspar. We will have everything ship-shape here in a very short time."
"What? You don't
mean to expel Abdulla out of here by force! I tell you, you can't."
"Not I!"
exclaimed Lingard. "That's all over, I am afraid. Great pity. They will
suffer for it. He will squeeze them. Great pity. Damn it! I feel so sorry for
them if I had the Flash here I would try force. Eh! Why not? However, the poor
Flash is gone, and there is an end of it. Poor old hooker. Hey, Almayer? You
made a voyage or two with me. Was- n't she a sweet craft? Could make her do
anything but talk. She was better than a wife to me. Never scolded. Hey? . . .
And to think that it should come to this. That I should leave her poor old
bones sticking on a reef as though I had been a damned fool of a southern-going
man who must have half a mile of water under his keel to be safe! Well! well!
It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose. But it's hard.
Hard."
He nodded sadly, with
his eyes on the ground. Almayer looked at him with growing indignation.
"Upon my word, you
are heartless," he burst out; "perfectly heartless--and selfish. It
does not seem to strike you--in all that--that in losing your ship--by your
recklessness, I am sure--you ruin me--us, and my little Nina. What's going to
become of me and of her? That's what I want to know. You brought me here, made
me your partner, and now, when everything is gone to the devil--through your
fault, mind you--you talk about your ship . . . ship! You can get another. But
here. This trade. That's gone now, thanks to Willems. . . . Your dear
Willems!"
"Never you mind
about Willems. I will look after him," said Lingard, severely. "And
as to the trade . . . I will make your fortune yet, my boy. Never fear. Have
you got any cargo for the schooner that brought me here?"
"The shed is full
of rattans," answered Almayer, "and I have about eighty tons of
guttah in the well. The last lot I ever will have, no doubt," he added,
bitterly.
"So, after all,
there was no robbery. You've lost nothing actually. Well, then, you must . . .
Hallo! What's the matter! . . . Here! . . ."
"Robbery!
No!" screamed Almayer, throwing up his hands.
He fell back in the
chair and his face became purple. A little white foam appeared on his lips and
trickled down his chin, while he lay back, showing the whites of his upturned
eyes. When he came to himself he saw Lingard standing over him, with an empty
waterchatty in his hand.
"You had a fit of
some kind," said the old seaman with much concern. "What is it? You
did give me a fright. So very sudden."
Almayer, his hair all
wet and stuck to his head, as if he had been diving, sat up and gasped.
"Outrage! A
fiendish outrage. I . . ."
Lingard put the chatty
on the table and looked at him in attentive silence. Almayer passed his hand
over his forehead and went on in an unsteady tone:
"When I remember
that, I lose all control," he said. "I told you he anchored Abdulla's
ship abreast our jetty, but over to the other shore, near the Rajah's place.
The ship was surrounded with boats. From here it looked as if she had been
landed on a raft. Every dugout in Sambir was there. Through my glass I could
distinguish the faces of people on the poop--Abdulla, Willems,
Lakamba--everybody. That old cringing scoundrel Sahamin was there. I could see
quite plain. There seemed to be much talk and discussion. Finally I saw a
ship's boat lowered. Some Arab got into her, and the boat went towards
Patalolo's landing-place. It seems they had been refused admittance--so they
say. I think myself that the water-gate was not unbarred quick enough to please
the exalted messenger. At any rate I saw the boat come back almost directly. I
was looking on, rather interested, when I saw Willems and some more go
forward--very busy about something there. That woman was also amongst them. Ah,
that woman . . ."
Almayer choked, and
seemed on the point of having a relapse, but by a violent effort regained a
comparative composure.
"All of a
sudden," he continued--"bang! They fired a shot into Patalolo's gate,
and before I had time to catch my breath--I was startled, you may believe
--they sent another and burst the gate open. Whereupon, I suppose, they thought
they had done enough for a while, and probably felt hungry, for a feast began
aft. Abdulla sat amongst them like an idol, cross- legged, his hands on his
lap. He's too great altogether to eat when others do, but he presided, you see.
Willems kept on dodging about forward, aloof from the crowd, and looking at my
house through the ship's long glass. I could not resist it. I shook my fist at
him."
"Just so,"
said Lingard, gravely. "That was the thing to do, of course. If you can't
fight a man the best thing is to exasperate him."
Almayer waved his hand
in a superior manner, and continued, unmoved: "You may say what you like.
You can't realize my feelings. He saw me, and, with his eye still at the small
end of the glass, lifted his arm as if answering a hail. I thought my turn to
be shot at would come next after Patalolo, so I ran up the Union Jack to the
flagstaff in the yard. I had no other protection. There were only three men
besides Ali that stuck to me --three cripples, for that matter, too sick to get
away. I would have fought singlehanded, I think, I was that angry, but there
was the child. What to do with her? Couldn't send her up the river with the
mother. You know I can't trust my wife. I decided to keep very quiet, but to
let nobody land on our shore. Private property, that; under a deed from
Patalolo. I was within my right--wasn't I? The morning was very quiet. After
they had a feed on board the barque with Abdulla most of them went home; only
the big people remained. Towards three o'clock Sahamin crossed alone in a small
canoe. I went down on our wharf with my gun to speak to him, but didn't let him
land. The old hypocrite said Abdulla sent greetings and wished to talk with me
on business; would I come on board? I said no; I would not. Told him that
Abdulla may write and I would answer, but no interview, neither on board his
ship nor on shore. I also said that if anybody attempted to land within my
fences I would shoot--no matter whom. On that he lifted his hands to heaven,
scandalized, and then paddled away pretty smartly--to report, I suppose. An
hour or so after- wards I saw Willems land a boat party at the Rajah's. It was
very quiet. Not a shot was fired, and there was hardly any shouting. They
tumbled those brass guns you presented to Patalolo last year down the bank into
the river. It's deep there close to. The channel runs that way, you know. About
five, Willems went back on board, and I saw him join Abdulla by the wheel aft.
He talked a lot, swinging his arms about--seemed to explain things--pointed at
my house, then down the reach. Finally, just before sunset, they hove upon the
cable and dredged the ship down nearly half a mile to the junction of the two
branches of the river--where she is now, as you might have seen."
Lingard nodded.
"That evening,
after dark--I was informed-- Abdulla landed for the first time in Sambir. He
was entertained in Sahamin's house. I sent Ali to the settlement for news. He
returned about nine, and reported that Patalolo was sitting on Abdulla's left
hand before Sahamin's fire. There was a great council. Ali seemed to think that
Patalolo was a prisoner, but he was wrong there. They did the trick very
neatly. Before midnight everything was arranged as I can make out. Patalolo
went back to his demolished stockade, escorted by a dozen boats with torches.
It appears he begged Abdulla to let him have a passage in the Lord of the Isles
to Penang. From there he would go to Mecca. The firing business was alluded to
as a mistake. No doubt it was in a sense. Patalolo never meant resisting. So he
is going as soon as the ship is ready for sea. He went on board next day with
three women and half a dozen fellows as old as himself. By Abdulla's orders he
was received with a salute of seven guns, and he has been living on board ever
since--five weeks. I doubt whether he will leave the river alive. At any rate
he won't live to reach Penang. Lakamba took over all his goods, and gave him a
draft on Abdulla's house payable in Penang. He is bound to die before he gets
there. Don't you see?"
He sat silent for a
while in dejected meditation, then went on:
"Of course there
were several rows during the night. Various fellows took the opportunity of the
unsettled state of affairs to pay off old scores and settle old grudges. I
passed the night in that chair there, dozing uneasily. Now and then there would
be a great tumult and yelling which would make me sit up, revolver in hand.
However, nobody was killed. A few broken heads--that's all. Early in the
morning Willems caused them to make a fresh move which I must say surprised me
not a little. As soon as there was daylight they busied themselves in setting
up a flag-pole on the space at the other end of the settlement, where Abdulla
is having his houses built now. Shortly after sunrise there was a great
gathering at the flag-pole. All went there. Willems was standing leaning
against the mast, one arm over that woman's shoulders. They had brought an
armchair for Patalolo, and Lakamba stood on the right hand of the old man, who
made a speech. Everybody in Sambir was there: women, slaves, children
--everybody! Then Patalolo spoke. He said that by the mercy of the Most High he
was going on a pilgrimage. The dearest wish of his heart was to be
accomplished. Then, turning to Lakamba, he begged him to rule justly during
his--Patalolo's--absence. There was a bit of play-acting there. Lakamba said he
was unworthy of the honourable burden, and Patalolo insisted. Poor old fool! It
must have been bitter to him. They made him actually entreat that scoundrel.
Fancy a man compelled to beg of a robber to despoil him! But the old Rajah was
so frightened. Anyway, he did it, and Lakamba accepted at last. Then Willems
made a speech to the crowd. Said that on his way to the west the Rajah--he
meant Patalolo--would see the Great White Ruler in Batavia and obtain his
protection for Sambir. Meantime, he went on, I, an Orang Blanda and your
friend, hoist the flag under the shadow of which there is safety. With that he
ran up a Dutch flag to the mast-head. It was made hurriedly, during the night,
of cotton stuffs, and, being heavy, hung down the mast, while the crowd stared.
Ali told me there was a great sigh of surprise, but not a word was spoken till
Lakamba advanced and proclaimed in a loud voice that during all that day every
one passing by the flagstaff must uncover his head and salaam before the
emblem."
"But, hang it
all!" exclaimed Lingard--"Abdulla is British!"
"Abdulla wasn't
there at all--did not go on shore that day. Yet Ali, who has his wits about
him, noticed that the space where the crowd stood was under the guns of the
Lord of the Isles. They had put a coir warp ashore, and gave the barque a cant
in the current, so as to bring the broadside to bear on the flagstaff. Clever!
Eh? But nobody dreamt of resistance. When they recovered from the surprise
there was a little quiet jeering; and Bahassoen abused Lakamba violently till
one of Lakamba's men hit him on the head with a staff. Frightful crack, I am
told. Then they left off jeering. Meantime Patalolo went away, and Lakamba sat
in the chair at the foot of the flagstaff, while the crowd surged around, as if
they could not make up their minds to go. Suddenly there was a great noise
behind Lakamba's chair. It was that woman, who went for Willems. Ali says she
was like a wild beast, but he twisted her wrist and made her grovel in the
dust. Nobody knows exactly what it was about. Some say it was about that flag.
He carried her off, flung her into a canoe, and went on board Abdulla's ship.
After that Sahamin was the first to salaam to the flag. Others followed suit.
Before noon everything was quiet in the settlement, and Ali came back and told
me all this."
Almayer drew a long
breath. Lingard stretched out his legs.
"Go on!" he
said.
Almayer seemed to
struggle with himself. At last he spluttered out:
"The hardest is to
tell yet. The most unheard-of thing! An outrage! A fiendish outrage!"
"WELL! Let's know
all about it. I can't imagine . . ." began Lingard, after waiting for some
time in silence.
"Can't imagine! I
should think you couldn't," interrupted Almayer. "Why! . . . You just
listen. When Ali came back I felt a little easier in my mind. There was then
some semblance of order in Sambir. I had the Jack up since the morning and
began to feel safer. Some of my men turned up in the afternoon. I did not ask
any questions; set them to work as if nothing had happened. Towards the
evening--it might have been five or half-past--I was on our jetty with the
child when I heard shouts at the far-off end of the settlement. At first I
didn't take much notice. By and by Ali came to me and says, 'Master, give me
the child, there is much trouble in the settlement.' So I gave him Nina and
went in, took my revolver, and passed through the house into the back
courtyard. As I came down the steps I saw all the serving girls clear out from
the cooking shed, and I heard a big crowd howling on the other side of the dry
ditch which is the limit of our ground. Could not see them on account of the
fringe of bushes along the ditch, but I knew that crowd was angry and after
somebody. As I stood wondering, that Jim-Eng--you know the Chinaman who settled
here a couple of years ago?"
"He was my
passenger; I brought him here," exclaimed Lingard. "A first-class
Chinaman that."
"Did you? I had
forgotten. Well, that Jim-Eng, he burst through the bush and fell into my arms,
so to speak. He told me, panting, that they were after him because he wouldn't
take off his hat to the flag. He was not so much scared, but he was very angry
and indignant. Of course he had to run for it; there were some fifty men after
him--Lakamba's friends--but he was full of fight. Said he was an Englishman,
and would not take off his hat to any flag but English. I tried to soothe him
while the crowd was shouting on the other side of the ditch. I told him he must
take one of my canoes and cross the river. Stop on the other side for a couple
of days. He wouldn't. Not he. He was English, and he would fight the whole lot.
Says he: 'They are only black fellows. We white men,' meaning me and himself,
'can fight everybody in Sambir.' He was mad with passion. The crowd quieted a
little, and I thought I could shelter Jim-Eng without much risk, when all of a
sudden I heard Willems' voice. He shouted to me in English: 'Let four men enter
your compound to get that Chinaman!' I said nothing. Told Jim-Eng to keep quiet
too. Then after a while Willems shouts again: 'Don't resist, Almayer. I give
you good advice. I am keeping this crowd back. Don't resist them!' That
beggar's voice enraged me; I could not help it. I cried to him: 'You are a liar!'
and just then Jim-Eng, who had flung off his jacket and had tucked up his
trousers ready for a fight; just then that fellow he snatches the revolver out
of my hand and lets fly at them through the bush. There was a sharp cry--he
must have hit somebody--and a great yell, and before I could wink twice they
were over the ditch and through the bush and on top of us! Simply rolled over
us! There wasn't the slightest chance to resist. I was trampled under foot,
Jim-Eng got a dozen gashes about his body, and we were carried halfway up the
yard in the first rush. My eyes and mouth were full of dust; I was on my back
with three or four fellows sitting on me. I could hear Jim-Eng trying to shout
not very far from me. Now and then they would throttle him and he would gurgle.
I could hardly breathe myself with two heavy fellows on my chest. Willems came
up running and ordered them to raise me up, but to keep good hold. They led me
into the verandah. I looked round, but did not see either Ali or the child.
Felt easier. Struggled a little. . . . Oh, my God!"
Almayer's face was
distorted with a passing spasm of rage. Lingard moved in his chair slightly.
Almayer went on after a short pause:
"They held me,
shouting threats in my face. Willems took down my hammock and threw it to them.
He pulled out the drawer of this table, and found there a palm and needle and
some sail-twine. We were making awnings for your brig, as you had asked me last
voyage before you left. He knew, of course, where to look for what he wanted. By
his orders they laid me out on the floor, wrapped me in my hammock, and he
started to stitch me in, as if I had been a corpse, beginning at the feet.
While he worked he laughed wickedly. I called him all the names I could think
of. He told them to put their dirty paws over my mouth and nose. I was nearly
choked. Whenever I moved they punched me in the ribs. He went on taking fresh
needlefuls as he wanted them, and working steadily. Sewed me up to my throat.
Then he rose, saying, 'That will do; let go.' That woman had been standing by;
they must have been reconciled. She clapped her hands. I lay on the floor like
a bale of goods while he stared at me, and the woman shrieked with delight.
Like a bale of goods! There was a grin on every face, and the verandah was full
of them. I wished myself dead--'pon my word, Captain Lingard, I did! I do now
whenever I think of it!"
Lingard's face
expressed sympathetic indignation. Almayer dropped his head upon his arms on
the table, and spoke in that position in an indistinct and muffled voice,
without looking up.
"Finally, by his
directions, they flung me into the big rocking-chair. I was sewed in so tight
that I was stiff like a piece of wood. He was giving orders in a very loud
voice, and that man Babalatchi saw that they were executed. They obeyed him
implicitly. Meantime I lay there in the chair like a log, and that woman
capered before me and made faces; snapped her fingers before my nose. Women are
bad!--ain't they? I never saw her before, as far as I know. Never done anything
to her. Yet she was perfectly fiendish. Can you understand it? Now and then she
would leave me alone to hang round his neck for awhile, and then she would
return before my chair and begin her exercises again. He looked on, indulgent.
The perspiration ran down my face, got into my eyes--my arms were sewn in. I
was blinded half the time; at times I could see better. She drags him before my
chair. 'I am like white women,' she says, her arms round his neck. You should
have seen the faces of the fellows in the verandah! They were scandalized and
ashamed of themselves to see her behaviour. Suddenly she asks him, alluding to
me: 'When are you going to kill him?' Imagine how I felt. I must have swooned;
I don't remember exactly. I fancy there was a row; he was angry. When I got my
wits again he was sitting close to me, and she was gone. I understood he sent
her to my wife, who was hiding in the back room and never came out during this
affair. Willems says to me--I fancy I can hear his voice, hoarse and dull-- he
says to me: 'Not a hair of your head shall be touched.' I made no sound. Then
he goes on: 'Please remark that the flag you have hoisted--which, by the by, is
not yours --has been respected. Tell Captain Lingard so when you do see him.
But,' he says, 'you first fired at the crowd.' 'You are a liar, you
blackguard!' I shouted. He winced, I am sure. It hurt him to see I was not
frightened. 'Anyways,' he says, 'a shot had been fired out of your compound and
a man was hit. Still, all your property shall be respected on account of the
Union Jack. Moreover, I have no quarrel with Captain Lingard, who is the senior
partner in this business. As to you,' he continued, 'you will not forget this
day-- not if you live to be a hundred years old--or I don't know your nature.
You will keep the bitter taste of this humiliation to the last day of your
life, and so your kindness to me shall be repaid. I shall remove all the powder
you have. This coast is under the protection of the Netherlands, and you have
no right to have any powder. There are the Governor's Orders in Council to that
effect, and you know it. Tell me where the key of the small storehouse is?' I
said not a word, and he waited a little, then rose, saying: 'It's your own
fault if there is any damage done.' He ordered Babalatchi to have the lock of
the office-room forced, and went in-- rummaged amongst my drawers--could not
find the key. Then that woman Aïssa asked my wife, and she gave them the key.
After awhile they tumbled every barrel into the river. Eighty-three
hundredweight! He superintended himself, and saw every barrel roll into the
water. There were mutterings. Babalatchi was angry and tried to expostulate,
but he gave him a good shaking. I must say he was perfectly fearless with those
fellows. Then he came back to the verandah, sat down by me again, and says: 'We
found your man Ali with your little daughter hiding in the bushes up the river.
We brought them in. They are perfectly safe, of course. Let me congratulate
you, Almayer, upon the cleverness of your child. She recognized me at once, and
cried "pig" as naturally as you would yourself. Circumstances alter
feelings. You should have seen how frightened your man Ali was. Clapped his
hands over her mouth. I think you spoil her, Almayer. But I am not angry.
Really, you look so ridiculous in this chair that I can't feel angry.' I made a
frantic effort to burst out of my hammock to get at that scoundrel's throat,
but I only fell off and upset the chair over myself. He laughed and said only:
'I leave you half of your revolver cartridges and take half myself; they will
fit mine. We are both white men, and should back each other up. I may want
them.' I shouted at him from under the chair: 'You are a thief,' but he never
looked, and went away, one hand round that woman's waist, the other on
Babalatchi's shoulder, to whom he was talking--laying down the law about
something or other. In less than five minutes there was nobody inside our
fences. After awhile Ali came to look for me and cut me free. I haven't seen
Willems since-- nor anybody else for that matter. I have been left alone. I
offered sixty dollars to the man who had been wounded, which were accepted.
They released Jim-Eng the next day, when the flag had been hauled down. He sent
six cases of opium to me for safe keeping but has not left his house. I think
he is safe enough now. Everything is very quiet."
Towards the end of his
narrative Almayer lifted his head off the table, and now sat back in his chair
and stared at the bamboo rafters of the roof above him. Lingard lolled in his
seat with his legs stretched out. In the peaceful gloom of the verandah, with
its lowered screens, they heard faint noises from the world outside in the
blazing sunshine: a hail on the river, the answer from the shore, the creak of
a pulley; sounds short, interrupted, as if lost suddenly in the brilliance of
noonday. Lingard got up slowly, walked to the front rail, and holding one of
the screens aside, looked out in silence. Over the water and the empty
courtyard came a distinct voice from a small schooner anchored abreast of the
Lingard jetty.
"Serang! Take a
pull at the main peak halyards. This gaff is down on the boom.''
There was a shrill pipe
dying in long-drawn cadence, the song of the men swinging on the rope. The
voice said sharply: "That will do!" Another voice--the serang's
probably--shouted: "Ikat!" and as Lingard dropped the blind and
turned away all was silent again, as if there had been nothing on the other
side of the swaying screen; nothing but the light, brilliant, crude, heavy,
lying on a dead land like a pall of fire. Lingard sat down again, facing
Almayer, his elbow on the table, in a thoughtful attitude.
"Nice little
schooner," muttered Almayer, wearily. "Did you buy her?"
"No,"
answered Lingard. "After I lost the Flash we got to Palembang in our
boats. I chartered her there, for six months. From young Ford, you know.
Belongs to him. He wanted a spell ashore, so I took charge myself. Of course
all Ford's people on board. Strangers to me. I had to go to Singapore about the
insurance; then I went to Macassar, of course. Had long passages. No wind. It
was like a curse on me. I had lots of trouble with old Hudig. That delayed me
much."
"Ah! Hudig! Why
with Hudig?" asked Almayer, in a perfunctory manner.
"Oh! about a . . .
a woman," mumbled Lin- gard.
Almayer looked at him
with languid surprise. The old seaman had twisted his white beard into a point,
and now was busy giving his moustaches a fierce curl. His little red
eyes--those eyes that had smarted under the salt sprays of every sea, that had
looked unwinking to windward in the gales of all latitudes--now glared at
Almayer from behind the lowered eyebrows like a pair of frightened wild beasts
crouching in a bush.
"Extraordinary! So
like you! What can you have to do with Hudig's women? The old sinner!"
said Almayer, negligently.
"What are you
talking about! Wife of a friend of . . . I mean of a man I know . . ."
"Still, I don't
see . . ." interjected Almayer carelessly.
"Of a man you know
too. Well. Very well."
"I knew so many
men before you made me bury myself in this hole!" growled Almayer,
unamiably. "If she had anything to do with Hudig--that wife-- then she
can't be up to much. I would be sorry for the man," added Almayer,
brightening up with the recollection of the scandalous tittle-tattle of the
past, when he was a young man in the second capital of the Islands--and so well
informed, so well informed. He laughed. Lingard's frown deepened.
"Don't talk
foolish! It's Willems' wife."
Almayer grasped the
sides of his seat, his eyes and mouth opened wide.
"What? Why!"
he exclaimed, bewildered.
"Willems'--wife,"
repeated Lingard distinctly. "You ain't deaf, are you? The wife of
Willems. Just so. As to why! There was a promise. And I did not know what had
happened here."
"What is it.
You've been giving her money, I bet," cried Almayer.
"Well, no!"
said Lingard, deliberately. "Although I suppose I shall have to . .
."
Almayer groaned.
"The fact
is," went on Lingard, speaking slowly and steadily, "the fact is that
I have . . . I have brought her here. Here. To Sambir."
"In heaven's name!
why?" shouted Almayer, jumping up. The chair tilted and fell slowly over.
He raised his clasped hands above his head and brought them down jerkily,
separating his fingers with an effort, as if tearing them apart. Lingard
nodded, quickly, several times.
"I have. Awkward.
Hey?" he said, with a puzzled look upwards.
"Upon my
word," said Almayer, tearfully. "I can't understand you at all. What
will you do next! Willems' wife!"
"Wife and child.
Small boy, you know. They are on board the schooner."
Almayer looked at
Lingard with sudden suspicion, then turning away busied himself in picking up
the chair, sat down in it turning his back upon the old seaman, and tried to
whistle, but gave it up directly. Lingard went on--
"Fact is, the
fellow got into trouble with Hudig. Worked upon my feelings. I promised to
arrange matters. I did. With much trouble. Hudig was angry with her for wishing
to join her husband. Unprincipled old fellow. You know she is his daughter.
Well, I said I would see her through it all right; help Willems to a fresh
start and so on. I spoke to Craig in Palembang. He is getting on in years, and
wanted a manager or partner. I promised to guarantee Willems' good behaviour.
We settled all that. Craig is an old crony of mine. Been shipmates in the
forties. He's waiting for him now. A pretty mess! What do you think?"
Almayer shrugged his
shoulders.
"That woman broke
with Hudig on my assurance that all would be well," went on Lingard, with
growing dismay. "She did. Proper thing, of course. Wife, husband . . .
together . . . as it should be . . . Smart fellow . . . Impossible scoundrel .
. . Jolly old go! Oh! damn!"
Almayer laughed
spitefully.
"How delighted he
will be," he said, softly. "You will make two people happy. Two at
least!" He laughed again, while Lingard looked at his shaking shoulders in
consternation.
"I am jammed on a
lee shore this time, if ever I was," muttered Lingard.
"Send her back
quick," suggested Almayer, stifling another laugh.
"What are you
sniggering at?" growled Lingard, angrily. "I'll work it out all clear
yet. Meantime you must receive her into this house."
"My house!"
cried Almayer, turning round.
"It's mine too--a
little isn't it?" said Lingard. "Don't argue," he shouted, as
Almayer opened his mouth. "Obey orders and hold your tongue!"
"Oh! If you take
it in that tone!" mumbled Almayer, sulkily, with a gesture of assent.
"You are so
aggravating too, my boy," said the old seaman, with unexpected placidity
"You must give me time to turn round. I can't keep her on board all the
time. I must tell her something. Say, for instance, that he is gone up the
river. Expected back every day. That's it. D'ye hear? You must put her on that
tack and dodge her along easy, while I take the kinks out of the situation. By
God!" he exclaimed, mournfully, after a short pause, "life is foul!
Foul like a lee forebrace on a dirty night. And yet. And yet. One must see it
clear for running before going below-- for good. Now you attend to what I
said," he added, sharply, "if you don't want to quarrel with me, my
boy."
"I don't want to
quarrel with you," murmured Almayer with unwilling deference. "Only I
wish I could understand you. I know you are my best friend, Captain Lingard;
only, upon my word, I can't make you out sometimes! I wish I could . . ."
Lingard burst into a
loud laugh which ended shortly in a deep sigh. He closed his eyes, tilting his
head over the back of his armchair; and on his face, baked by the unclouded
suns of many hard years, there appeared for a moment a weariness and a look of
age which startled Almayer, like an unexpected disclosure of evil.
"I am done
up," said Lingard, gently. "Perfectly done up. All night on deck
getting that schooner up the river. Then talking with you. Seems to me I could
go to sleep on a clothes-line. I should like to eat something though. Just see
about that, Kaspar."
Almayer clapped his
hands, and receiving no response was going to call, when in the central passage
of the house, behind the red curtain of the doorway opening upon the verandah,
they heard a child's imperious voice speaking shrilly.
"Take me up at
once. I want to be carried into the verandah. I shall be very angry. Take me
up."
A man's voice answered,
subdued, in humble remonstrance. The faces of Almayer and Lingard brightened at
once. The old seaman called out--
"Bring the child.
Lekas!"
"You will see how
she has grown," exclaimed Almayer, in a jubilant tone.
Through the curtained
doorway Ali appeared with little Nina Almayer in his arms. The child had one
arm round his neck, and with the other she hugged a ripe pumelo nearly as big
as her own head. Her little pink, sleeveless robe had half slipped off her
shoulders, but the long black hair, that framed her olive face, in which the
big black eyes looked out in childish solemnity, fell in luxuriant profusion
over her shoulders, all round her and over Ali's arms, like a close-meshed and
delicate net of silken threads. Lingard got up to meet Ali, and as soon as she
caught sight of the old seaman she dropped the fruit and put out both her hands
with a cry of delight. He took her from the Malay, and she laid hold of his
moustaches with an affectionate goodwill that brought unaccustomed tears into
his little red eyes.
"Not so hard,
little one, not so hard," he murmured, pressing with an enormous hand,
that covered it entirely, the child's head to his face.
"Pick up my
pumelo, O Rajah of the sea!" she said, speaking in a high-pitched, clear
voice with great volubility. "There, under the table. I want it quick!
Quick! You have been away fighting with many men. Ali says so. You are a mighty
fighter. Ali says so. On the great sea far away, away, away."
She waved her hand,
staring with dreamy vacancy, while Lingard looked at her, and squatting down
groped under the table after the pumelo.
"Where does she
get those notions?" said Lingard, getting up cautiously, to Almayer, who
had been giving orders to Ali.
"She is always
with the men. Many a time I've found her with her fingers in their rice dish,
of an evening. She does not care for her mother though-- I am glad to say. How
pretty she is--and so sharp. My very image!"
Lingard had put the
child on the table, and both men stood looking at her with radiant faces.
"A perfect little
woman," whispered Lingard. "Yes, my dear boy, we shall make her
somebody. You'll see!"
"Very little
chance of that now," remarked Almayer, sadly.
"You do not
know!" exclaimed Lingard, taking up the child again, and beginning to walk
up and down the verandah. "I have my plans. I have--listen."
And he began to explain
to the interested Almayer his plans for the future. He would interview Abdulla
and Lakamba. There must be some understanding with those fellows now they had
the upper hand. Here he interrupted himself to swear freely, while the child,
who had been diligently fumbling about his neck, had found his whistle and blew
a loud blast now and then close to his ear--which made him wince and laugh as
he put her hands down, scolding her lovingly. Yes--that would be easily
settled. He was a man to be reckoned with yet. Nobody knew that better than
Almayer. Very well. Then he must patiently try and keep some little trade
together. It would be all right. But the great thing--and here Lingard spoke lower,
bringing himself to a sudden standstill before the entranced Almayer--the great
thing would be the gold hunt up the river. He--Lingard--would devote him- self
to it. He had been in the interior before. There were immense deposits of
alluvial gold there. Fabulous. He felt sure. Had seen places. Dangerous work?
Of course! But what a reward! He would explore--and find. Not a shadow of
doubt. Hang the danger! They would first get as much as they could for
themselves. Keep the thing quiet. Then after a time form a Company. In Batavia
or in England. Yes, in England. Much better. Splendid! Why, of course. And that
baby would be the richest woman in the world. He--Lingard--would not, perhaps,
see it-- although he felt good for many years yet--but Almayer would. Here was
something to live for yet! Hey?
But the richest woman
in the world had been for the last five minutes shouting shrilly--"Rajah
Laut! Rajah Laut! Haï! Give ear!" while the old seaman had been speaking
louder, unconsciously, to make his deep bass heard above the impatient clamour.
He stopped now and said tenderly--
"What is it,
little woman?"
"I am not a little
woman. I am a white child. Anak Putih. A white child; and the white men are my
brothers. Father says so. And Ali says so too. Ali knows as much as father.
Everything."
Almayer almost danced
with paternal delight.
"I taught her. I
taught her," he repeated, laughing with tears in his eyes. "Isn't she
sharp?"
"I am the slave of
the white child," said Lingard, with playful solemnity. "What is the
order?"
"I want a
house," she warbled, with great eagerness. "I want a house, and
another house on the roof, and another on the roof--high. High! Like the places
where they dwell--my brothers--in the land where the sun sleeps."
"To the
westward," explained Almayer, under his breath. "She remembers
everything. She wants you to build a house of cards. You did, last time you
were here."
Lingard sat down with
the child on his knees, and Almayer pulled out violently one drawer after
another, looking for the cards, as if the fate of the world depended upon his
haste. He produced a dirty double pack which was only used during Lingard's
visit to Sambir, when he would sometimes play--of an evening --with Almayer, a
game which he called Chinese bezique. It bored Almayer, but the old seaman
delighted in it, considering it a remarkable product of Chinese genius--a race
for which he had an unaccountable liking and admiration.
"Now we will get
on, my little pearl," he said, putting together with extreme precaution
two cards that looked absurdly flimsy between his big fingers. Little Nina
watched him with intense seriousness as he went on erecting the ground floor,
while he continued to speak to Almayer with his head over his shoulder so as
not to endanger the structure with his breath.
"I know what I am
talking about. . . . Been in California in forty-nine. . . . Not that I made
much . . . then in Victoria in the early days. . . . I know all about it. Trust
me. Moreover a blind man could . . . Be quiet, little sister, or you will knock
this affair down. . . . My hand pretty steady yet! Hey, Kaspar? . . . Now,
delight of my heart, we shall put a third house on the top of these two . . .
keep very quiet. . . . As I was saying, you got only to stoop and gather
handfuls of gold . . . dust . . . there. Now here we are. Three houses on top
of one another. Grand!"
He leaned back in his
chair, one hand on the child's head, which he smoothed mechanically, and
gesticulated with the other, speaking to Almayer.
"Once on the spot,
there would be only the trouble to pick up the stuff. Then we shall all go to
Europe. The child must be educated. We shall be rich. Rich is no name for it.
Down in Devonshire where I belong, there was a fellow who built a house near
Teignmouth which had as many windows as a three- decker has ports. Made all his
money somewhere out here in the good old days. People around said he had been a
pirate. We boys--I was a boy in a Brixham trawler then--certainly believed
that. He went about in a bath-chair in his grounds. Had a glass eye . . ."
"Higher,
Higher!" called out Nina, pulling the old seaman's beard.
"You do worry
me--don't you?" said Lingard, gently, giving her a tender kiss.
"What? One more house on top of all these? Well! I will try."
The child watched him
breathlessly. When the difficult feat was accomplished she clapped her hands,
looked on steadily, and after a while gave a great sigh of content.
"Oh! Look
out!" shouted Almayer.
The structure collapsed
suddenly before the child's light breath. Lingard looked discomposed for a
moment. Almayer laughed, but the little girl began to cry.
"Take her,"
said the old seaman, abruptly. Then, after Almayer went away with the crying
child, he remained sitting by the table, looking gloomily at the heap of cards.
"Damn this
Willems," he muttered to himself. "But I will do it yet!"
He got up, and with an
angry push of his hand swept the cards off the table. Then he fell back in his
chair.
"Tired as a
dog," he sighed out, closing his eyes.
CONSCIOUSLY or
unconsciously, men are proud of their firmness, steadfastness of purpose,
directness of aim. They go straight towards their desire, to the accomplishment
of virtue--sometimes of crime--in an uplifting persuasion of their firmness.
They walk the road of life, the road fenced in by their tastes, prejudices,
disdains or enthusiasms, generally honest, invariably stupid, and are proud of
never losing their way. If they do stop, it is to look for a moment over the
hedges that make them safe, to look at the misty valleys, at the distant peaks,
at cliffs and morasses, at the dark forests and the hazy plains where other
human beings grope their days painfully away, stumbling over the bones of the
wise, over the unburied remains of their predecessors who died alone, in gloom
or in sunshine, halfway from anywhere. The man of purpose does not understand,
and goes on, full of contempt. He never loses his way. He knows where he is
going and what he wants. Travelling on, he achieves great length without any
breadth, and battered, besmirched, and weary, he touches the goal at last; he
grasps the reward of his perseverance, of his virtue, of his healthy optimism: an
untruthful tombstone over a dark and soon forgotten grave.
Lingard had never
hesitated in his life. Why should he? He had been a most successful trader, and
a man lucky in his fights, skilful in navigation, undeniably first in
seamanship in those seas. He knew it. Had he not heard the voice of common
consent? The voice of the world that respected him so much; the whole world to
him--for to us the limits of the universe are strictly defined by those we
know. There is nothing for us outside the babble of praise and blame on
familiar lips, and beyond our last acquaintance there lies only a vast chaos; a
chaos of laughter and tears which concerns us not; laughter and tears
unpleasant, wicked, morbid, contemptible-- because heard imperfectly by ears
rebellious to strange sounds. To Lingard--simple himself--all things were
simple. He seldom read. Books were not much in his way, and he had to work hard
navigating, trading, and also, in obedience to his benevolent instincts,
shaping stray lives he found here and there under his busy hand. He remembered
the Sunday- school teachings of his native village and the discourses of the
black-coated gentleman connected with the Mission to Fishermen and Seamen,
whose yawl- rigged boat darting through rain-squalls amongst the coasters
wind-bound in Falmouth Bay, was part of those precious pictures of his youthful
days that lingered in his memory. "As clever a sky-pilot as you could wish
to see," he would say with conviction, "and the best man to handle a
boat in any weather I ever did meet!" Such were the agencies that had
roughly shaped his young soul before he went away to see the world in a
southern-going ship--before he went, ignorant and happy, heavy of hand, pure in
heart, profane in speech, to give himself up to the great sea that took his
life and gave him his fortune. When thinking of his rise in the
world--commander of ships, then shipowner, then a man of much capital,
respected wherever he went, Lingard in a word, the Rajah Laut--he was amazed
and awed by his fate, that seemed to his ill-informed mind the most wondrous
known in the annals of men. His experience appeared to him immense and
conclusive, teaching him the lesson of the simplicity of life. In life--as in
seamanship--there were only two ways of doing a thing: the right way and the
wrong way. Common sense and experience taught a man the way that was right. The
other was for lubbers and fools, and led, in seamanship, to loss of spars and
sails or shipwreck; in life, to loss of money and consideration, or to an
unlucky knock on the head. He did not consider it his duty to be angry with
rascals. He was only angry with things he could not understand, but for the
weaknesses of humanity he could find a contemptuous tolerance. It being
manifest that he was wise and lucky--otherwise how could he have been as
successful in life as he had been?--he had an inclination to set right the
lives of other people, just as he could hardly refrain--in defiance of nautical
etiquette--from interfering with his chief officer when the crew was sending up
a new topmast, or generally when busy about, what he called, "a heavy
job." He was meddlesome with perfect modesty; if he knew a thing or two
there was no merit in it. "Hard knocks taught me wisdom, my boy," he
used to say, "and you had better take the advice of a man who has been a
fool in his time. Have another." And "my boy" as a rule took the
cool drink, the advice, and the consequent help which Lingard felt himself
bound in honour to give, so as to back up his opinion like an honest man.
Captain Tom went sailing from island to island, appearing unexpectedly in
various localities, beaming, noisy, anecdotal, commendatory or comminatory, but
always welcome.
It was only since his
return to Sambir that the old seaman had for the first time known doubt and
unhappiness, The loss of the Flash--planted firmly and for ever on a ledge of
rock at the north end of Gaspar Straits in the uncertain light of a cloudy
morning--shook him considerably; and the amazing news which he heard on his
arrival in Sambir were not made to soothe his feelings. A good many years ago--
prompted by his love of adventure--he, with infinite trouble, had found out and
surveyed--for his own benefit only--the entrances to that river, where, he had
heard through native report, a new settlement of Malays was forming. No doubt
he thought at the time mostly of personal gain; but, received with hearty
friendliness by Patalolo, he soon came to like the ruler and the people,
offered his counsel and his help, and-- knowing nothing of Arcadia--he dreamed
of Arcadian happiness for that little corner of the world which he loved to
think all his own. His deep-seated and immovable conviction that only he--he,
Lingard-- knew what was good for them was characteristic of him. and, after all,
not so very far wrong. He would make them happy whether or no, he said, and he
meant it. His trade brought prosperity to the young state, and the fear of his
heavy hand secured its internal peace for many years.
He looked proudly upon
his work. With every passing year he loved more the land, the people, the muddy
river that, if he could help it, would carry no other craft but the Flash on
its unclean and friendly surface. As he slowly warped his vessel up-stream he
would scan with knowing looks the riverside clearings, and pronounce solemn
judgment upon the prospects of the season's rice-crop. He knew every settler on
the banks between the sea and Sambir; he knew their wives, their children; he
knew every individual of the multi-coloured groups that, standing on the flimsy
platforms of tiny reed dwellings built over the water, waved their hands and
shouted shrilly: "O! Kapal layer! Haï!" while the Flash swept slowly
through the populated reach, to enter the lonely stretches of sparkling brown
water bordered by the dense and silent forest, whose big trees nodded their
outspread boughs gently in the faint, warm breeze--as if in sign of tender but
melancholy welcome. He loved it all: the landscape of brown golds and brilliant
emeralds under the dome of hot sapphire; the whispering big trees; the
loquacious nipa-palms that rattled their leaves volubly in the night breeze, as
if in haste to tell him all the secrets of the great forest behind them. He
loved the heavy scents of blossoms and black earth, that breath of life and of
death which lingered over his brig in the damp air of tepid and peaceful
nights. He loved the narrow and sombre creeks, strangers to sunshine: black,
smooth, tortuous--like byways of despair. He liked even the troops of
sorrowful-faced monkeys that profaned the quiet spots with capricious gambols
and insane gestures of inhuman madness. He loved everything there, animated or
inanimated; the very mud of the riverside; the very alligators, enormous and
stolid, basking on it with impertinent unconcern. Their size was a source of
pride to him. "Immense fellows! Make two of them Palembang reptiles! I
tell you, old man!" he would shout, poking some crony of his playfully in
the ribs: "I tell you, big as you are, they could swallow you in one gulp,
hat, boots and all! Magnificent beggars! Wouldn't you like to see them?
Wouldn't you! Ha! ha! ha!" His thunderous laughter filled the verandah,
rolled over the hotel garden, overflowed into the street, paralyzing for a
short moment the noiseless traffic of bare brown feet; and its loud
reverberations would even startle the landlord's tame bird--a shameless
mynah--into a momentary propriety of behaviour under the nearest chair. In the
big billiard-room perspiring men in thin cotton singlets would stop the game,
listen, cue in hand, for a while through the open windows, then nod their moist
faces at each other sagaciously and whisper: "The old fellow is talking
about his river."
His river! The whispers
of curious men, the mystery of the thing, were to Lingard a source of
never-ending delight. The common talk of ignorance exaggerated the profits of
his queer monopoly, and, although strictly truthful in general, he liked, on
that matter, to mislead speculation still further by boasts full of cold
raillery. His river! By it he was not only rich--he was interesting. This
secret of his which made him different to the other traders of those seas gave
intimate satisfaction to that desire for singularity which he shared with the
rest of mankind, without being aware of its presence within his breast. It was
the greater part of his happiness, but he only knew it after its loss, so
unforeseen, so sudden and so cruel.
After his conversation
with Almayer he went on board the schooner, sent Joanna on shore, and shut himself
up in his cabin, feeling very unwell. He made the most of his indisposition to
Almayer, who came to visit him twice a day. It was an excuse for doing nothing
just yet. He wanted to think. He was very angry. Angry with himself, with
Willems. Angry at what Willems had done--and also angry at what he had left
undone. The scoundrel was not complete. The conception was perfect, but the
execution, unaccountably, fell short. Why? He ought to have cut Almayer's
throat and burnt the place to ashes--then cleared out. Got out of his way; of
him, Lingard! Yet he didn't. Was it impudence, contempt--or what? He felt hurt
at the implied disrespect of his power, and the incomplete rascality of the
proceeding disturbed him exceedingly. There was something short, something
wanting, something that would have given him a free hand in the work of
retribution. The obvious, the right thing to do, was to shoot Willems. Yet how
could he? Had the fellow resisted, showed fight, or ran away; had he shown any
consciousness of harm done, it would have been more possible, more natural. But
no! The fellow actually had sent him a message. Wanted to see him. What for?
The thing could not be explained. An unexampled, cold-blooded treachery, awful,
incomprehensible. Why did he do it? Why? Why? The old seaman in the stuffy
solitude of his little cabin on board the schooner groaned out many times that
question, striking with an open palm his perplexed forehead.
During his four days of
seclusion he had received two messages from the outer world; from that world of
Sambir which had, so suddenly and so finally, slipped from his grasp. One, a
few words from Willems written on a torn-out page of a small notebook; the
other, a communication from Abdulla calligraphed carefully on a large sheet of
flimsy paper and delivered to him in a green silk wrapper. The first he could
not understand. It said: "Come and see me. I am not afraid. Are you?
W." He tore it up angrily, but before the small bits of dirty paper had
the time to flutter down and settle on the floor, the anger was gone and was
replaced by a sentiment that induced him to go on his knees, pick up the
fragments of the torn message, piece it together on the top of his chronometer
box, and contemplate it long and thoughtfully, as if he had hoped to read the
answer of the horrible riddle in the very form of the letters that went to make
up that fresh insult. Abdulla's letter he read carefully and rammed it into his
pocket, also with anger, but with anger that ended in a half-resigned,
half-amused smile. He would never give in as long as there was a chance.
"It's generally the safest way to stick to the ship as long as she will
swim," was one of his favourite sayings: "The safest and the right
way. To abandon a craft because it leaks is easy--but poor work. Poor
work!" Yet he was intelligent enough to know when he was beaten, and to
accept the situation like a man, without repining. When Almayer came on board
that afternoon he handed him the letter without comment.
Almayer read it,
returned it in silence, and leaning over the taffrail (the two men were on
deck) looked down for some time at the play of the eddies round the schooner's
rudder. At last he said without looking up--
"That's a decent
enough letter. Abdulla gives him up to you. I told you they were getting sick
of him. What are you going to do?"
Lingard cleared his
throat, shuffled his feet, opened his mouth with great determination, but said
nothing for a while. At last he murmured--
"I'll be hanged if
I know--just yet."
"I wish you would
do something soon . . ."
"What's the
hurry?" interrupted Lingard. "He can't get away. As it stands he is
at my mercy, as far as I can see."
"Yes," said
Almayer, reflectively--"and very little mercy he deserves too. Abdulla's
meaning--as I can make it out amongst all those compliments--is: 'Get rid for
me of that white man--and we shall live in peace and share the trade."'
"You believe
that?" asked Lingard, contemptuously.
"Not
altogether," answered Almayer. "No doubt we will share the trade for
a time--till he can grab the lot. Well, what are you going to do?"
He looked up as he
spoke and was surprised to see Lingard's discomposed face.
"You ain't well.
Pain anywhere?" he asked, with real solicitude.
"I have been
queer--you know--these last few days, but no pain." He struck his broad
chest several times, cleared his throat with a powerful "Hem!" and
repeated: "No. No pain. Good for a few years yet. But I am bothered with
all this, I can tell you!"
"You must take
care of yourself," said Almayer. Then after a pause he added: "You
will see Abdulla. Won't you?"
"I don't know. Not
yet. There's plenty of time," said Lingard, impatiently.
"I wish you would
do something," urged Almayer, moodily. "You know, that woman is a
perfect nuisance to me. She and her brat! Yelps all day. And the children don't
get on together. Yesterday the little devil wanted to fight with my Nina.
Scratched her face, too. A perfect savage! Like his honourable papa. Yes,
really. She worries about her husband, and whimpers from morning to night. When
she isn't weeping she is furious with me. Yesterday she tormented me to tell
her when he would be back and cried because he was engaged in such dangerous
work. I said something about it being all right--no necessity to make a fool of
herself, when she turned upon me like a wild cat. Called me a brute, selfish,
heartless; raved about her beloved Peter risking his life for my benefit, while
I did not care. Said I took advantage of his generous good-nature to get him to
do dangerous work--my work. That he was worth twenty of the likes of me. That
she would tell you--open your eyes as to the kind of man I was, and so on.
That's what I've got to put up with for your sake. You really might consider me
a little. I haven't robbed anybody," went on Almayer, with an attempt at
bitter irony--"or sold my best friend, but still you ought to have some
pity on me. It's like living in a hot fever. She is out of her wits. You make
my house a refuge for scoundrels and lunatics. It isn't fair. 'Pon my word it
isn't! When she is in her tantrums she is ridiculously ugly and screeches
so--it sets my teeth on edge. Thank God! my wife got a fit of the sulks and
cleared out of the house. Lives in a riverside hut since that affair--you know.
But this Willems' wife by herself is almost more than I can bear. And I ask
myself why should I? You are exacting and no mistake. This morning I thought
she was going to claw me. Only think! She wanted to go prancing about the settlement.
She might have heard something there, so I told her she mustn't. It wasn't safe
outside our fences, I said. Thereupon she rushes at me with her ten nails up to
my eyes. 'You miserable man,' she yells, 'even this place is not safe, and
you've sent him up this awful river where he may lose his head. If he dies
before forgiving me, Heaven will punish you for your crime . . .' My crime! I
ask myself sometimes whether I am dreaming! It will make me ill, all this. I've
lost my appetite already."
He flung his hat on
deck and laid hold of his hair despairingly. Lingard looked at him with
concern.
"What did she mean
by it?" he muttered, thoughtfully.
"Mean! She is
crazy, I tell you--and I will be, very soon, if this lasts!"
"Just a little
patience, Kaspar," pleaded Lingard. "A day or so more."
Relieved or tired by
his violent outburst, Almayer calmed down, picked up his hat and, leaning
against the bulwark, commenced to fan himself with it.
"Days do
pass," he said, resignedly--"but that kind of thing makes a man old
before his time. What is there to think about?--I can't imagine! Abdulla says
plainly that if you undertake to pilot his ship out and instruct the
half-caste, he will drop Willems like a hot potato and be your friend ever
after. I believe him perfectly, as to Willems. It's so natural. As to being
your friend it's a lie of course, but we need not bother about that just yet.
You just say yes to Abdulla, and then whatever happens to Willems will be
nobody's business."
He interrupted himself
and remained silent for a while, glaring about with set teeth and dilated
nostrils.
"You leave it to
me. I'll see to it that something happens to him," he said at last, with
calm ferocity. Lingard smiled faintly.
"The fellow isn't
worth a shot. Not the trouble of it," he whispered, as if to himself.
Almayer fired up suddenly.
"That's what you
think," he cried. "You haven't been sewn up in your hammock to be
made a laughing- stock of before a parcel of savages. Why! I daren't look
anybody here in the face while that scoundrel is alive. I will . . . I will
settle him."
"I don't think you
will," growled Lingard.
"Do you think I am
afraid of him?"
"Bless you!
no!" said Lingard with alacrity. "Afraid! Not you. I know you. I
don't doubt your courage. It's your head, my boy, your head that I . . ."
"That's it,"
said the aggrieved Almayer. "Go on. Why don't you call me a fool at
once?"
"Because I don't
want to," burst out Lingard, with nervous irritability. "If I wanted
to call you a fool, I would do so without asking your leave." He began to
walk athwart the narrow quarter-deck, kicking ropes' ends out of his way and
growling to himself: "Delicate gentleman . . . what next? . . . I've done
man's work before you could toddle. Understand . . . say what I like."
"Well! well!"
said Almayer, with affected resignation. "There's no talking to you these
last few days." He put on his hat, strolled to the gangway and stopped,
one foot on the little inside ladder, as if hesitating, came back and planted
himself in Lingard's way, compelling him to stand still and listen.
"Of course you
will do what you like. You never take advice--I know that; but let me tell you
that it wouldn't be honest to let that fellow get away from here. If you do
nothing, that scoundrel will leave in Abdulla's ship for sure. Abdulla will
make use of him to hurt you and others elsewhere. Willems knows too much about
your affairs. He will cause you lots of trouble. You mark my words. Lots of
trouble. To you--and to others perhaps. Think of that, Captain Lingard. That's
all I've got to say. Now I must go back on shore. There's lots of work. We will
begin loading this schooner to-morrow morning, first thing. All the bundles are
ready. If you should want me for anything, hoist some kind of flag on the
mainmast. At night two shots will fetch me." Then he added, in a friendly
tone, "Won't you come and dine in the house to-night? It can't be good for
you to stew on board like that, day after day."
Lingard did not answer.
The image evoked by Almayer; the picture of Willems ranging over the islands
and disturbing the harmony of the universe by robbery, treachery, and violence,
held him silent, entranced--painfully spellbound. Almayer, after waiting for a
little while, moved reluctantly towards the gangway, lingered there, then
sighed and got over the side, going down step by step. His head disappeared
slowly below the rail. Lingard, who had been staring at him absently, started
suddenly, ran to the side, and looking over, called out--
"Hey! Kaspar! Hold
on a bit!"
Almayer signed to his
boatmen to cease paddling, and turned his head towards the schooner. The boat
drifted back slowly abreast of Lingard, nearly alongside.
"Look here,"
said Lingard, looking down--"I want a good canoe with four men to-day."
"Do you want it
now?" asked Almayer.
"No! Catch this
rope. Oh, you clumsy devil! . . . No, Kaspar," went on Lingard, after the
bowman had got hold of the end of the brace he had thrown down into the
canoe--"No, Kaspar. The sun is too much for me. And it would be better to
keep my affairs quiet, too. Send the canoe--four good paddlers, mind, and your
canvas chair for me to sit in. Send it about sunset. D'ye hear?"
"All right,
father," said Almayer, cheerfully--"I will send Ali for a steersman, and
the best men I've got. Anything else?"
"No, my lad. Only
don't let them be late."
"I suppose it's no
use asking you where you are going," said Almayer, tentatively.
"Because if it is to see Abdulla, I . . ."
"I am not going to
see Abdulla. Not to-day. Now be off with you."
He watched the canoe
dart away shorewards, waved his hand in response to Almayer's nod, and walked
to the taffrail smoothing out Abdulla's letter, which he had pulled out of his
pocket. He read it over carefully, crumpled it up slowly, smiling the while and
closing his fingers firmly over the crackling paper as though he had hold there
of Abdulla's throat. Half- way to his pocket he changed his mind, and flinging
the ball overboard looked at it thoughtfully as it spun round in the eddies for
a moment, before the current bore it away down-stream, towards the sea.
THE night was very
dark. For the first time in many months the East Coast slept unseen by the
stars under a veil of motionless cloud that, driven before the first breath of
the rainy monsoon, had drifted slowly from the eastward all the afternoon;
pursuing the declining sun with its masses of black and grey that seemed to
chase the light with wicked intent, and with an ominous and gloomy steadiness,
as though conscious of the message of violence and turmoil they carried. At the
sun's disappearance below the western horizon, the immense cloud, in quickened
motion, grappled with the glow of retreating light, and rolling down to the
clear and jagged outline of the distant mountains, hung arrested above the
steaming forests; hanging low, silent and menacing over the unstirring
tree-tops; withholding the blessing of rain, nursing the wrath of its thunder;
undecided--as if brooding over its own power for good or for evil.
Babalatchi, coming out
of the red and smoky light of his little bamboo house, glanced upwards, drew in
a long breath of the warm and stagnant air, and stood for a moment with his
good eye closed tightly, as if intimidated by the unwonted and deep silence of
Lakamba's courtyard. When he opened his eye he had recovered his sight so far,
that he could distinguish the various degrees of formless blackness which
marked the places of trees, of abandoned houses, of riverside bushes, on the dark
background of the night. The careworn sage walked cautiously down
the deserted courtyard
to the waterside, and stood on the bank listening to the voice of the invisible
river that flowed at his feet; listening to the soft whispers, to the deep
murmurs, to the sudden gurgles and the short hisses of the swift current racing
along the bank through the hot darkness.
He stood with his face
turned to the river, and it seemed to him that he could breathe easier with the
knowledge of the clear vast space before him; then, after a while he leaned
heavily forward on his staff, his chin fell on his breast, and a deep sigh was
his answer to the selfish discourse of the river that hurried on unceasing and
fast, regardless of joy or sorrow, of suffering and of strife, of failures and
triumphs that lived on its banks. The brown water was there, ready to carry
friends or enemies, to nurse love or hate on its submissive and heartless
bosom, to help or to hinder, to save life or give death; the great and rapid
river: a deliverance, a prison, a refuge or a grave.
Perchance such thoughts
as these caused Babalatchi to send another mournful sigh into the trailing
mists of the unconcerned Pantai. The barbarous politician had forgotten the
recent success of his plottings in the melancholy contemplation of a sorrow
that made the night blacker, the clammy heat more oppressive, the still air
more heavy, the dumb solitude more significant of torment than of peace. He had
spent the night before by the side of the dying Omar, and now, after
twenty-four hours, his memory persisted in returning to that low and sombre
reed hut from which the fierce spirit of the incomparably accomplished pirate
took its flight, to learn too late, in a worse world, the error of its earthly
ways. The mind of the savage statesman, chastened by bereavement, felt for a
moment the weight of his loneliness with keen perception worthy even of a
sensibility exasperated by all the refinements of tender sentiment that a
glorious civilization brings in its train, among other blessings and virtues,
into this excellent world. For the space of about thirty seconds, a half-
naked, betel-chewing pessimist stood upon the bank of the tropical river, on
the edge of the still and immense forests; a man angry, powerless, empty-handed,
with a cry of bitter discontent ready on his lips; a cry that, had it come out,
would have rung through the virgin solitudes of the woods, as true, as great,
as profound, as any philosophical shriek that ever came from the depths of an
easy-chair to disturb the impure wilderness of chimneys and roofs.
For half a minute and
no more did Babalatchi face the gods in the sublime privilege of his revolt,
and then the one-eyed puller of wires became himself again, full of care and
wisdom and far-reaching plans, and a victim to the tormenting superstitions of
his race. The night, no matter how quiet, is never perfectly silent to
attentive ears, and now Babalatchi fancied he could detect in it other noises
than those caused by the ripples and eddies of the river. He turned his head
sharply to the right and to the left in succession, and then spun round quickly
in a startled and watchful manner, as if he had expected to see the blind ghost
of his departed leader wandering in the obscurity of the empty courtyard behind
his back. Nothing there. Yet he had heard a noise; a strange noise! No doubt a
ghostly voice of a complaining and angry spirit. He listened. Not a sound.
Reassured, Babalatchi made a few paces towards his house, when a very human
noise, that of hoarse coughing, reached him from the river. He stopped,
listened attentively, but now without any sign of emotion, and moving briskly
back to the waterside stood expectant with parted lips, trying to pierce with
his eye the wavering curtain of mist that hung low over the water. He could see
nothing, yet some people in a canoe must have been very near, for he heard
words spoken in an ordinary tone.
"Do you think this
is the place, Ali? I can see nothing."
"It must be near
here, Tuan," answered another voice. "Shall we try the bank?"
"No! . . . Let
drift a little. If you go poking into the bank in the dark you might stove the
canoe on some log. We must be careful. . . . Let drift! Let drift! . . . This
does seem to be a clearing of some sort. We may see a light by and by from some
house or other. In Lakamba's campong there are many houses? Hey?"
"A great number,
Tuan . . . I do not see any light."
"Nor I,"
grumbled the first voice again, this time nearly abreast of the silent
Babalatchi who looked uneasily towards his own house, the doorway of which
glowed with the dim light of a torch burning within. The house stood end on to
the river, and its doorway faced down-stream, so Babalatchi reasoned rapidly
that the strangers on the river could not see the light from the position their
boat was in at the moment. He could not make up his mind to call out to them,
and while he hesitated he heard the voices again, but now some way below the
landing-place where he stood.
"Nothing. This
cannot be it. Let them give way, Ali! Dayong there!"
That order was followed
by the splash of paddles, then a sudden cry--
"I see a light. I
see it! Now I know where to land, Tuan."
There was more
splashing as the canoe was paddled sharply round and came back up-stream close
to the bank.
"Call out,"
said very near a deep voice, which Babalatchi felt sure must belong to a white
man. "Call out--and somebody may come with a torch. I can't see
anything."
The loud hail that
succeeded these words was emitted nearly under the silent listener's nose.
Babalatchi, to preserve appearances, ran with long but noiseless strides
halfway up the courtyard, and only then shouted in answer and kept on shouting
as he walked slowly back again towards the river bank. He saw there an
indistinct shape of a boat, not quite alongside the landing-place.
"Who speaks on the
river?" asked Babalatchi, throwing a tone of surprise into his question.
"A white
man," answered Lingard from the canoe. "Is there not one torch in
rich Lakamba's campong to light a guest on his landing?"
"There are no
torches and no men. I am alone here," said Babalatchi, with some
hesitation.
"Alone!"
exclaimed Lingard. "Who are you?"
"Only a servant of
Lakamba. But land, Tuan Putih, and see my face. Here is my hand. No! Here! . .
. By your mercy. . . . Ada! . . . Now you are safe."
"And you are alone
here?" said Lingard, moving with precaution a few steps into the courtyard.
"How dark it is," he muttered to himself--"one would think the
world had been painted black."
"Yes. Alone. What
more did you say, Tuan? I did not understand your talk."
"It is nothing. I
expected to find here . . . But where are they all?"
"What matters
where they are?" said Babalatchi, gloomily. "Have you come to see my
people? The last departed on a long journey--and I am alone. Tomorrow I go
too."
"I came to see a
white man," said Lingard, walking on slowly. "He is not gone, is
he?"
"No!"
answered Babalatchi, at his elbow. "A man with a red skin and hard
eyes," he went on, musingly, "whose hand is strong, and whose heart
is foolish and weak. A white man indeed . . . But still a man."
They were now at the
foot of the short ladder which led to the split-bamboo platform surrounding
Babalatchi's habitation. The faint light from the doorway fell down upon the
two men's faces as they stood looking at each other curiously.
"Is he
there?" asked Lingard, in a low voice, with a wave of his hand upwards.
Babalatchi, staring
hard at his long-expected visitor, did not answer at once. "No, not
there," he said at last, placing his foot on the lowest rung and looking
back. "Not there, Tuan--yet not very far. Will you sit down in my
dwelling? There may be rice and fish and clear water--not from the river, but
from a spring . . ." "I am not hungry," interrupted Lingard,
curtly, and I did not come here to sit in your dwelling. Lead me to the white
man who expects me. I have no time to lose."
"The night is
long, Tuan," went on Babalatchi, softly, "and there are other nights
and other days. Long. Very long . . . How much time it takes for a man to die!
O Rajah Laut!"
Lingard started.
"You know
me!" he exclaimed.
"Ay--wa! I have
seen your face and felt your hand before--many years ago," said
Babalatchi, holding on halfway up the ladder, and bending down from above to
peer into Lingard's upturned face. "You do not remember--but I have not
forgotten. There are many men like me: there is only one Rajah Laut."
He climbed with sudden
agility the last few steps, and stood on the platform waving his hand
invitingly to Lingard, who followed after a short moment of indecision.
The elastic bamboo
floor of the hut bent under the heavy weight of the old seaman, who, standing
within the threshold, tried to look into the smoky gloom of the low dwelling.
Under the torch, thrust into the cleft of a stick, fastened at a right angle to
the middle stay of the ridge pole, lay a red patch of light, showing a few shabby
mats and a corner of a big wooden chest the rest of which was lost in shadow.
In the obscurity of the more remote parts of the house a lance-head, a brass
tray hung on the wall, the long barrel of a gun leaning against the chest,
caught the stray rays of the smoky illumination in trembling gleams that
wavered, disappeared, reappeared, went out, came back--as if engaged in a
doubtful struggle with the darkness that, lying in wait in distant corners,
seemed to dart out viciously towards its feeble enemy. The vast space under the
high pitch of the roof was filled with a thick cloud of smoke, whose
under-side--level like a ceiling-- reflected the light of the swaying dull
flame, while at the top it oozed out through the imperfect thatch of dried palm
leaves. An indescribable and complicated smell, made up of the exhalation of
damp earth below, of the taint of dried fish and of the effluvia of rotting
vegetable matter, pervaded the place and caused Lingard to sniff strongly as he
strode over, sat on the chest, and, leaning his elbows on his knees, took his
head between his hands and stared at the doorway thoughtfully.
Babalatchi moved about
in the shadows, whispering to an indistinct form or two that flitted about at
the far end of the hut. Without stirring Lingard glanced sideways, and caught
sight of muffled-up human shapes that hovered for a moment near the edge of
light and retreated suddenly back into the darkness. Babalatchi approached, and
sat at Lingard's feet on a rolled-up bundle of mats.
"Will you eat rice
and drink sagueir?" he said. "I have waked up my household."
"My friend," said Lingard, without looking at him, "when I come
to see Lakamba, or any of Lakamba's servants, I am never hungry and never thirsty.
Tau! Savee! Never! Do you think I am devoid of reason? That there is nothing
there?"
He sat up, and, fixing
abruptly his eyes on Babalatchi, tapped his own forehead significantly.
"Tse! Tse! Tse!
How can you talk like that, Tuan!" exclaimed Babalatchi, in a horrified
tone.
"I talk as I
think. I have lived many years," said Lingard, stretching his arm
negligently to take up the gun, which he began to examine knowingly, cocking
it, and easing down the hammer several times. "This is good. Mataram make.
Old, too," he went on. "Haï!" broke in Babalatchi, eagerly.
"I got it when I was young. He was an Aru trader, a man with a big stomach
and a loud voice, and brave--very brave. When we came up with his prau in the
grey morning, he stood aft shouting to his men and fired this gun at us once.
Only once!" . . . He paused, laughed softly, and went on in a low, dreamy
voice. "In the grey morning we came up: forty silent men in a swift Sulu
prau; and when the sun was so high"--here he held up his hands about three
feet apart--"when the sun was only so high, Tuan, our work was done--and
there was a feast ready for the fishes of the sea."
"Aye! aye!"
muttered Lingard, nodding his head slowly. "I see. You should not let it
get rusty like this," he added.
He let the gun fall
between his knees, and moving back on his seat, leaned his head against the
wall of the hut, crossing his arms on his breast.
"A good gun,"
went on Babalatchi. "Carry far and true. Better than this--there."
With the tips of his
fingers he touched gently the butt of a revolver peeping out of the right
pocket of Lingard's white jacket.
"Take your hand
off that," said Lingard sharply, but in a good-humoured tone and without
making the slightest movement.
Babalatchi smiled and
hitched his seat a little further off.
For some time they sat
in silence. Lingard, with his head tilted back, looked downwards with lowered
eyelids at Babalatchi, who was tracing invisible lines with his finger on the
mat between his feet. Outside, they could hear Ali and the other boatmen chattering
and laughing round the fire they had lighted in the big and deserted courtyard.
"Well, what about
that white man?" said Lingard, quietly.
It seemed as if
Babalatchi had not heard the question. He went on tracing elaborate patterns on
the floor for a good while. Lingard waited motionless. At last the Malay lifted
his head.
"Haï! The white
man. I know!" he murmured absently. "This white man or another. . . .
Tuan," he said aloud with unexpected animation, "you are a man of the
sea?"
"You know me. Why
ask?" said Lingard, in a low tone.
"Yes. A man of the
sea--even as we are. A true Orang Laut," went on Babalatchi, thoughtfully,
"not like the rest of the white men."
"I am like other
whites, and do not wish to speak many words when the truth is short. I came
here to see the white man that helped Lakamba against Patalolo, who is my
friend. Show me where that white man lives; I want him to hear my talk."
"Talk only? Tuan!
Why hurry? The night is long and death is swift--as you ought to know; you who
have dealt it to so many of my people. Many years ago I have faced you, arms in
hand. Do you not remember? It was in Carimata--far from here."
I cannot remember every
vagabond that came in my way," protested Lingard, seriously.
"Haï! Haï!"
continued Babalatchi, unmoved and dreamy. "Many years ago. Then all
this"--and looking up suddenly at Lingard's beard, he flourished his
fingers below his own beardless chin--"then all this was like gold in
sunlight, now it is like the foam of an angry sea."
"Maybe,
maybe," said Lingard, patiently, paying the involuntary tribute of a faint
sigh to the memories of the past evoked by Babalatchi's words.
He had been living with
Malays so long and so close that the extreme deliberation and deviousness of
their mental proceedings had ceased to irritate him much. To-night, perhaps, he
was less prone to impatience than ever. He was disposed, if not to listen to
Babalatchi, then to let him talk. It was evident to him that the man had
something to say, and he hoped that from the talk a ray of light would shoot
through the thick blackness of inexplicable treachery, to show him clearly--if
only for a second--the man upon whom he would have to execute the verdict of
justice. Justice only! Nothing was further from his thoughts than such an
useless thing as revenge. Justice only. It was his duty that justice should be
done --and by his own hand. He did not like to think how. To him, as to
Babalatchi, it seemed that the night would be long enough for the work he had
to do. But he did not define to himself the nature of the work, and he sat very
still, and willingly dilatory, under the fearsome oppression of his call. What
was the good to think about it? It was inevitable, and its time was near. Yet
he could not command his memories that came crowding round him in that
evil-smelling hut, while Babalatchi talked on in a flowing monotone, nothing of
him moving but the lips, in the artificially inanimated face. Lingard, like an
anchored ship that had broken her sheer, darted about here and there on the
rapid tide of his recollections. The subdued sound of soft words rang around
him, but his thoughts were lost, now in the contemplation of the past sweetness
and strife of Carimata days, now in the uneasy wonder at the failure of his
judgment; at the fatal blindness of accident that had caused him, many years
ago, to rescue a half- starved runaway from a Dutch ship in Samarang roads. How
he had liked the man: his assurance, his push, his desire to get on, his
conceited good-humour and his selfish eloquence. He had liked his very faults--
those faults that had so many, to him, sympathetic sides. And he had always
dealt fairly by him from the very beginning; and he would deal fairly by him
now --to the very end. This last thought darkened Lingard's features with a
responsive and menacing frown. The doer of justice sat with compressed lips and
a heavy heart, while in the calm darkness outside the silent world seemed to be
waiting breathlessly for that justice he held in his hand--in his strong hand:--ready
to strike--reluctant to move.
BABALATCHI ceased
speaking. Lingard shifted his feet a little, uncrossed his arms, and shook his
head slowly. The narrative of the events in Sambir, related from the point of
view of the astute statesman, the sense of which had been caught here and there
by his inattentive ears, had been yet like a thread to guide him out of the
sombre labyrinth of his thoughts; and now he had come to the end of it, out of
the tangled past into the pressing necessities of the present. With the palms
of his hands on his knees, his elbows squared out, he looked down on Babalatchi
who sat in a stiff attitude, inexpressive and mute as a talking doll the
mechanism of which had at length run down.
"You people did
all this," said Lingard at last, "and you will be sorry for it before
the dry wind begins to blow again. Abdulla's voice will bring the Dutch rule
here."
Babalatchi waved his
hand towards the dark doorway.
"There are forests
there. Lakamba rules the land now. Tell me, Tuan, do you think the big trees
know the name of the ruler? No. They are born, they grow, they live and they
die--yet know not, feel not. It is their land."
"Even a big tree
may be killed by a small axe," said Lingard, drily. "And, remember,
my one-eyed friend, that axes are made by white hands. You will soon find that
out, since you have hoisted the flag of the Dutch."
"Ay--wa!"
said Babalatchi, slowly. "It is written that the earth belongs to those
who have fair skins and hard but foolish hearts. The farther away is the
master, the easier it is for the slave, Tuan! You were too near. Your voice
rang in our ears always. Now it is not going to be so. The great Rajah in
Batavia is strong, but he may be deceived. He must speak very loud to be heard
here. But if we have need to shout, then he must hear the many voices that call
for protection. He is but a white man."
"If I ever spoke
to Patalolo, like an elder brother, it was for your good--for the good of
all," said Lingard with great earnestness.
"This is a white
man's talk," exclaimed Babalatchi, with bitter exultation. "I know
you. That is how you all talk while you load your guns and sharpen your swords;
and when you are ready, then to those who are weak you say: 'Obey me and be
happy, or die! You are strange, you white men. You think it is only your wisdom
and your virtue and your happiness that are true. You are stronger than the
wild beasts, but not so wise. A black tiger knows when he is not hungry--you do
not. He knows the difference between himself and those that can speak; you do
not understand the difference between yourselves and us--who are men. You are
wise and great --and you shall always be fools."
He threw up both his
hands, stirring the sleeping cloud of smoke that hung above his head, and
brought the open palms on the flimsy floor on each side of his outstretched
legs. The whole hut shook. Lingard looked at the excited statesman curiously.
"Apa! Apa! What's
the matter?" he murmured, soothingly. "Whom did I kill here? Where
are my guns? What have I done? What have I eaten up?"
Babalatchi calmed down,
and spoke with studied courtesy.
"You, Tuan, are of
the sea, and more like what we are. Therefore I speak to you all the words that
are in my heart. . . . Only once has the sea been stronger than the Rajah of
the sea."
"You know it; do
you?" said Lingard, with pained sharpness.
"Haï! We have
heard about your ship--and some rejoiced. Not I. Amongst the whites, who are
devils, you are a man."
"Trima kassi! I
give you thanks," said Lingard, gravely.
Babalatchi looked down
with a bashful smile, but his face became saddened directly, and when he spoke
again it was in a mournful tone.
"Had you come a
day sooner, Tuan, you would have seen an enemy die. You would have seen him die
poor, blind, unhappy--with no son to dig his grave and speak of his wisdom and
courage. Yes; you would have seen the man that fought you in Carimata many
years ago, die alone--but for one friend. A great sight to you."
"Not to me,"
answered Lingard. "I did not even remember him till you spoke his name
just now. You do not understand us. We fight, we vanquish--and we forget."
"True, true,"
said Babalatchi, with polite irony; "you whites are so great that you
disdain to remember your enemies. No! No!" he went on, in the same tone,
"you have so much mercy for us, that there is no room for any remembrance.
Oh, you are great and good! But it is in my mind that amongst yourselves you
know how to remember. Is it not so, Tuan?"
Lingard said nothing.
His shoulders moved imperceptibly. He laid his gun across his knees and stared
at the flint lock absently.
"Yes," went
on Babalatchi, falling again into a mournful mood, "yes, he died in
darkness. I sat by his side and held his hand, but he could not see the face of
him who watched the faint breath on his lips. She, whom he had cursed because
of the white man, was there too, and wept with covered face. The white man
walked about the courtyard making many noises. Now and then he would come to
the doorway and glare at us who mourned. He stared with wicked eyes, and then I
was glad that he who was dying was blind. This is true talk. I was glad; for a
white man's eyes are not good to see when the devil that lives within is
looking out through them."
"Devil! Hey?"
said Lingard, half aloud to himself, as if struck with the obviousness of some
novel idea. Babalatchi went on:
"At the first hour
of the morning he sat up--he so weak--and said plainly some words that were not
meant for human ears. I held his hand tightly, but it was time for the leader
of brave men to go amongst the Faithful who are happy. They of my household
brought a white sheet, and I began to dig a grave in the hut in which he died.
She mourned aloud. The white man came to the doorway and shouted. He was angry.
Angry with her because she beat her breast, and tore her hair, and mourned with
shrill cries as a woman should. Do you understand what I say, Tuan? That white
man came inside the hut with great fury, and took her by the shoulder, and
dragged her out. Yes, Tuan. I saw Omar dead, and I saw her at the feet of that
white dog who has deceived me. I saw his face grey, like the cold mist of the
morning; I saw his pale eyes looking down at Omar's daughter beating her head
on the ground at his feet. At the feet of him who is Abdulla's slave. Yes, he
lives by Abdulla's will. That is why I held my hand while I saw all this. I
held my hand because we are now under the flag of the Orang Blanda, and Abdulla
can speak into the ears of the great. We must not have any trouble with white
men. Abdulla has spoken-- and I must obey."
"That's it, is
it?" growled Lingard in his moustache. Then in Malay, "It seems that
you are angry, O Babalatchi!"
"No; I am not
angry, Tuan," answered Babalatchi, descending from the insecure heights of
his indignation into the insincere depths of safe humility. "I am not
angry. What am I to be angry? I am only an Orang Laut, and I have fled before
your people many times. Servant of this one--protected of another; I have given
my counsel here and there for a handful of rice. What am I, to be angry with a
white man? What is anger without the power to strike? But you whites have taken
all: the land, the sea, and the power to strike! And there is nothing left for
us in the islands but your white men's justice; your great justice that knows
not anger."
He got up and stood for
a moment in the doorway, sniffing the hot air of the courtyard, then turned back
and leaned against the stay of the ridge pole, facing Lingard who kept his seat
on the chest. The torch, consumed nearly to the end, burned noisily. Small
explosions took place in the heart of the flame, driving through its smoky
blaze strings of hard, round puffs of white smoke, no bigger than peas, which
rolled out of doors in the faint draught that came from invisible cracks of the
bamboo walls. The pungent taint of unclean things below and about the hut grew
heavier, weighing down Lingard's resolution and his thoughts in an irresistible
numbness of the brain. He thought drowsily of himself and of that man who
wanted to see him--who waited to see him. Who waited! Night and day. Waited. .
. . A spiteful but vaporous idea floated through his brain that such waiting
could not be very pleasant to the fellow. Well, let him wait. He would see him
soon enough. And for how long? Five seconds--five minutes--say nothing--say
something. What? No! Just give him time to take one good look, and then . . .
Suddenly Babalatchi
began to speak in a soft voice. Lingard blinked, cleared his throat--sat up
straight.
"You know all now,
Tuan. Lakamba dwells in the stockaded house of Patalolo; Abdulla has begun to
build godowns of plank and stone; and now that Omar is dead, I myself shall
depart from this place and live with Lakamba and speak in his ear. I have
served many. The best of them all sleeps in the ground in a white sheet, with
nothing to mark his grave but the ashes of the hut in which he died. Yes, Tuan!
the white man destroyed it himself. With a blazing brand in his hand he strode
around, shouting to me to come out-- shouting to me, who was throwing earth on
the body of a great leader. Yes; swearing to me by the name of your God and
ours that he would burn me and her in there if we did not make haste. . . . Haï!
The white men are very masterful and wise. I dragged her out quickly!"
"Oh, damn it!" exclaimed Lingard--then went on in Malay, speaking
earnestly. "Listen. That man is not like other white men. You know he is
not. He is not a man at all. He is . . . I don't know."
Babalatchi lifted his
hand deprecatingly. His eye twinkled, and his red-stained big lips, parted by
an expressionless grin, uncovered a stumpy row of black teeth filed evenly to
the gums.
"Haï! Haï! Not
like you. Not like you," he said, increasing the softness of his tones as
he neared the object uppermost in his mind during that much- desired interview.
"Not like you, Tuan, who are like ourselves, only wiser and stronger. Yet
he, also, is full of great cunning, and speaks of you without any respect,
after the manner of white men when they talk of one another."
Lingard leaped in his
seat as if he had been prodded.
"He speaks! What
does he say?" he shouted.
"Nay, Tuan,"
protested the composed Babalatchi; "what matters his talk if he is not a
man? I am nothing before you--why should I repeat words of one white man about
another? He did boast to Abdulla of having learned much from your wisdom in
years past. Other words I have forgotten. Indeed, Tuan, I have . . ."
Lingard cut short
Babalatchi's protestations by a contemptuous wave of the hand and reseated
himself with dignity.
"I shall go,"
said Babalatchi, "and the white man will remain here, alone with the
spirit of the dead and with her who has been the delight of his heart. He,
being white, cannot hear the voice of those that died. . . . Tell me,
Tuan," he went on, looking at Lingard with curiosity--"tell me, Tuan,
do you white people ever hear the voices of the invisible ones?"
"We do not,"
answered Lingard, "because those that we cannot see do not speak."
"Never speak! And
never complain with sounds that are not words?" exclaimed Babalatchi,
doubtingly. "It may be so--or your ears are dull. We Malays hear many
sounds near the places where men are buried. To-night I heard . . . Yes, even I
have heard. . . . I do not want to hear any more," he added, nervously.
"Perhaps I was wrong when I . . . There are things I regret. The trouble
was heavy in his heart when he died. Sometimes I think I was wrong . . . but I
do not want to hear the complaint of invisible lips. Therefore I go, Tuan. Let
the unquiet spirit speak to his enemy the white man who knows not fear, or
love, or mercy--knows nothing but contempt and violence. I have been wrong! I
have! Haï! Haï!"
He stood for awhile
with his elbow in the palm of his left hand, the fingers of the other over his
lips as if to stifle the expression of inconvenient remorse; then, after
glancing at the torch, burnt out nearly to its end, he moved towards the wall
by the chest, fumbled about there and suddenly flung open a large shutter of
attaps woven in a light framework of sticks. Lingard swung his legs quickly
round the corner of his seat.
"Hallo!" he
said, surprised.
The cloud of smoke
stirred, and a slow wisp curled out through the new opening. The torch
flickered, hissed, and went out, the glowing end falling on the mat, whence Babalatchi
snatched it up and tossed it outside through the open square. It described a
vanishing curve of red light, and lay below, shining feebly in the vast
darkness. Babalatchi remained with his arm stretched out into the empty night.
"There," he
said, "you can see the white man's courtyard, Tuan, and his house."
"I can see
nothing," answered Lingard, putting his head through the shutter-hole.
"It's too dark."
"Wait, Tuan,"
urged Babalatchi. "You have been looking long at the burning torch. You will
soon see. Mind the gun, Tuan. It is loaded."
"There is no flint
in it. You could not find a firestone for a hundred miles round this
spot," said Lingard, testily. "Foolish thing to load that gun."
"I have a stone. I
had it from a man wise and pious that lives in Menang Kabau. A very pious
man--very good fire. He spoke words over that stone that make its sparks good.
And the gun is good--carries straight and far. Would carry from here to the
door of the white man's house, I believe, Tuan."
"Tida apa. Never
mind your gun," muttered Lingard, peering into the formless darkness.
"Is that the house--that black thing over there?" he asked.
"Yes,"
answered Babalatchi; "that is his house. He lives there by the will of
Abdulla, and shall live there till . . . From where you stand, Tuan, you can
look over the fence and across the courtyard straight at the door--at the door
from which he comes out every morning, looking like a man that had seen
Jehannum in his sleep."
Lingard drew his head
in. Babalatchi touched his shoulder with a groping hand.
"Wait a little,
Tuan. Sit still. The morning is not far off now--a morning without sun after a
night without stars. But there will be light enough to see the man who said not
many days ago that he alone has made you less than a child in Sambir."
He felt a slight tremor
under his hand, but took it off directly and began feeling all over the lid of
the chest, behind Lingard's back, for the gun.
"What are you
at?" said Lingard, impatiently. "You do worry about that rotten gun.
You had better get a light."
"A light! I tell
you, Tuan, that the light of heaven is very near," said Babalatchi, who
had now obtained possession of the object of his solicitude, and grasping it
strongly by its long barrel, grounded the stock at his feet.
"Perhaps it is
near," said Lingard, leaning both his elbows on the lower cross-piece of
the primitive window and looking out. "It is very black outside yet,"
he remarked carelessly.
Babalatchi fidgeted
about.
"It is not good
for you to sit where you may be seen," he muttered.
"Why not?"
asked Lingard.
"The white man
sleeps, it is true," explained Babalatchi, softly; "yet he may come
out early, and he has arms."
"Ah! he has
arms?" said Lingard.
"Yes; a short gun
that fires many times--like yours here. Abdulla had to give it to him."
Lingard heard
Babalatchi's words, but made no movement. To the old adventurer the idea that
fire arms could be dangerous in other hands than his own did not occur readily,
and certainly not in connection with Willems. He was so busy with the thoughts
about what he considered his own sacred duty, that he could not give any
consideration to the probable actions of the man of whom he thought--as one may
think of an executed criminal--with wondering indignation tempered by scornful
pity. While he sat staring into the darkness, that every minute grew thinner
before his pensive eyes, like a dispersing mist, Willems appeared to him as a
figure belonging already wholly to the past --a figure that could come in no
way into his life again. He had made up his mind, and the thing was as well as
done. In his weary thoughts he had closed this fatal, inexplicable, and
horrible episode in his life. The worst had happened. The coming days would see
the retribution.
He had removed an enemy
once or twice before, out of his path; he had paid off some very heavy scores a
good many times. Captain Tom had been a good friend to many: but it was
generally understood, from Honolulu round about to Diego Suarez, that Captain
Tom's enmity was rather more than any man single- handed could easily manage.
He would not, as he said often, hurt a fly as long as the fly left him alone;
yet a man does not live for years beyond the pale of civilized laws without
evolving for himself some queer notions of justice. Nobody of those he knew had
ever cared to point out to him the errors of his conceptions. It was not worth
anybody's while to run counter to Lingard's ideas of the fitness of things--
that fact was acquired to the floating wisdom of the South Seas, of the Eastern
Archipelago, and was nowhere better understood than in out-of-the-way nooks of
the world; in those nooks which he filled, unresisted and masterful, with the
echoes of his noisy presence. There is not much use in arguing with a man who
boasts of never having regretted a single action of his life, whose answer to a
mild criticism is a good-natured shout--"You know nothing about it. I
would do it again. Yes, sir!" His associates and his acquaintances
accepted him, his opinions, his actions like things preordained and
unchangeable; looked upon his many-sided manifestations with passive wonder not
unmixed with that admiration which is only the rightful due of a successful
man. But nobody had ever seen him in the mood he was in now. Nobody had seen
Lingard doubtful and giving way to doubt, unable to make up his mind and
unwilling to act; Lingard timid and hesitating one minute, angry yet inactive
the next; Lingard puzzled in a word, because confronted with a situation that
discomposed him by its unprovoked malevolence, by its ghastly injustice, that
to his rough but unsophisticated palate tasted distinctly of sulphurous fumes
from the deepest hell.
The smooth darkness
filling the shutter-hole grew paler and became blotchy with ill-defined shapes,
as if a new universe was being evolved out of sombre chaos. Then outlines came
out, defining forms without any details, indicating here a tree, there a bush;
a black belt of forest far off; the straight lines of a house, the ridge of a
high roof near by. Inside the hut, Babalatchi, who lately had been only a
persuasive voice, became a human shape leaning its chin imprudently on the
muzzle of a gun and rolling an uneasy eye over the reappearing world. The day
came rapidly, dismal and oppressed by the fog of the river and by the heavy
vapours of the sky--a day without colour and without sunshine: incomplete,
disappointing, and sad.
Babalatchi twitched
gently Lingard's sleeve, and when the old seaman had lifted up his head
interrogatively, he stretched out an arm and a pointing forefinger towards
Willems' house, now plainly visible to the right and beyond the big tree of the
courtyard.
"Look, Tuan!"
he said. "He lives there. That is the door--his door. Through it he will
appear soon, with his hair in disorder and his mouth full of curses. That is
so. He is a white man, and never satisfied. It is in my mind he is angry even
in his sleep. A dangerous man. As Tuan may observe," he went on,
obsequiously, "his door faces this opening, where you condescend to sit,
which is concealed from all eyes. Faces it--straight--and not far. Observe,
Tuan, not at all far."
"Yes, yes; I can
see. I shall see him when he wakes."
"No doubt, Tuan.
When he wakes. . . . If you remain here he can not see you. I shall withdraw
quickly and prepare my canoe myself. I am only a poor man, and must go to
Sambir to greet Lakamba when he opens his eyes. I must bow before Abdulla who
has strength--even more strength than you. Now if you remain here, you shall
easily behold the man who boasted to Abdulla that he had been your friend, even
while he prepared to fight those who called you protector. Yes, he plotted with
Abdulla for that cursed flag. Lakamba was blind then, and I was deceived. But
you, Tuan! Remember, he deceived you more. Of that he boasted before all
men."
He leaned the gun
quietly against the wall close to the window, and said softly: "Shall I go
now, Tuan? Be careful of the gun. I have put the fire-stone in. The fire-stone
of the wise man, which never fails."
Lingard's eyes were
fastened on the distant doorway. Across his line of sight, in the grey
emptiness of the courtyard, a big fruit-pigeon flapped languidly towards the
forests with a loud booming cry, like the note of a deep gong: a brilliant bird
looking in the gloom of threatening day as black as a crow. A serried flock of
white rice birds rose above the trees with a faint scream, and hovered, swaying
in a disordered mass that suddenly scattered in all directions, as if burst
asunder by a silent explosion. Behind his back Lingard heard a shuffle of
feet--women leaving the hut. In the other courtyard a voice was heard
complaining of cold, and coming very feeble, but exceedingly distinct, out of
the vast silence of the abandoned houses and clearings. Babalatchi coughed
discreetly. From under the house the thumping of wooden pestles husking the
rice started with unexpected abruptness. The weak but clear voice in the yard
again urged, "Blow up the embers, O brother!" Another voice answered,
drawling in modulated, thin sing-song, "Do it yourself, O shivering
pig!" and the drawl of the last words stopped short, as if the man had fallen
into a deep hole. Babalatchi coughed again a little impatiently, and said in a
confidential tone--
"Do you think it
is time for me to go, Tuan? Will you take care of my gun, Tuan? I am a man that
knows how to obey; even obey Abdulla, who has deceived me. Nevertheless this
gun carries far and true --if you would want to know, Tuan. And I have put in a
double measure of powder, and three slugs. Yes, Tuan. Now--perhaps--I go."
When Babalatchi
commenced speaking, Lingard turned slowly round and gazed upon him with the
dull and unwilling look of a sick man waking to another day of suffering. As
the astute statesman proceeded, Lingard's eyebrows came close, his eyes became
animated, and a big vein stood out on his forehead, accentuating a lowering
frown. When speaking his last words Babalatchi faltered, then stopped,
confused, before the steady gaze of the old seaman.
Lingard rose. His face
cleared, and he looked down at the anxious Babalatchi with sudden benevolence.
"So! That's what
you were after," he said, laying a heavy hand on Babalatchi's yielding
shoulder. "You thought I came here to murder him. Hey? Speak! You faithful
dog of an Arab trader!"
"And what else,
Tuan?" shrieked Babalatchi, exasperated into sincerity. "What else,
Tuan! Remember what he has done; he poisoned our ears with his talk about you.
You are a man. If you did not come to kill, Tuan, then either I am a fool or .
. ." He paused, struck his naked breast with his open palm, and finished
in a discouraged whisper--"or, Tuan, you are."
Lingard looked down at
him with scornful serenity. After his long and painful gropings amongst the
obscure abominations of Willems' conduct, the logical if tortuous evolutions of
Babalatchi's diplomatic mind were to him welcome as daylight. There was
something at last he could understand--the clear effect of a simple cause. He
felt indulgent towards the disappointed sage.
"So you are angry
with your friend, O one-eyed one!" he said slowly, nodding his fierce
countenance close to Babalatchi's discomfited face. "It seems to me that
you must have had much to do with what happened in Sambir lately. Hey? You son
of a burnt father."
"May I perish
under your hand, O Rajah of the sea, if my words are not true!" said
Babalatchi, with reckless excitement. "You are here in the midst of your
enemies. He the greatest. Abdulla would do nothing without him, and I could do
nothing without Abdulla. Strike me--so that you strike all!"
"Who are
you," exclaimed Lingard contemptuously --"who are you to dare call
yourself my enemy! Dirt! Nothing! Go out first," he went on severely.
"Lakas! quick. March out!"
He pushed Babalatchi
through the doorway and followed him down the short ladder into the courtyard.
The boatmen squatting over the fire turned their slow eyes with apparent
difficulty towards the two men; then, unconcerned, huddled close together
again, stretching forlornly their hands over the embers. The women stopped in
their work and with uplifted pestles flashed quick and curious glances from the
gloom under the house.
"Is that the
way?" asked Lingard with a nod towards the little wicket-gate of Willems'
enclosure.
"If you seek
death, that is surely the way," answered Babalatchi in a dispassionate
voice, as if he had exhausted all the emotions. "He lives there: he who
destroyed your friends; who hastened Omar's death; who plotted with Abdulla
first against you, then against me. I have been like a child. O shame! . . .
But go, Tuan. Go there."
"I go where I
like," said Lingard, emphatically, "and you may go to the devil; I do
not want you any more. The islands of these seas shall sink before I, Rajah
Laut, serve the will of any of your people. Tau? But I tell you this: I do not
care what you do with him after to-day. And I say that because I am
merciful."
"Tida! I do
nothing," said Babalatchi, shaking his head with bitter apathy. "I am
in Abdulla's hand and care not, even as you do. No! no!" he added, turning
away, "I have learned much wisdom this morning. There are no men anywhere.
You whites are cruel to your friends and merciful to your enemies --which is
the work of fools."
He went away towards
the riverside, and, without once looking back, disappeared in the low bank of
mist that lay over the water and the shore. Lingard followed him with his eyes
thoughtfully. After awhile he roused himself and called out to his boatmen--
"Haï--ya there!
After you have eaten rice, wait for me with your paddles in your hands. You
hear?"
"Ada, Tuan!"
answered Ali through the smoke of the morning fire that was spreading itself,
low and gentle, over the courtyard--"we hear!"
Lingard opened slowly
the little wicket-gate, made a few steps into the empty enclosure, and stopped.
He had felt about his head the short breath of a puff of wind that passed him,
made every leaf of the big tree shiver-- and died out in a hardly perceptible
tremor of branches and twigs. Instinctively he glanced upwards with a seaman's
impulse. Above him, under the grey motionless waste of a stormy sky, drifted
low black vapours, in stretching bars, in shapeless patches, in sinuous wisps
and tormented spirals. Over the courtyard and the house floated a round,
sombre, and lingering cloud, dragging behind a tail of tangled and filmy
streamers --like the dishevelled hair of a mourning woman.
"BEWARE!"
The tremulous effort
and the broken, inadequate tone of the faint cry, surprised Lingard more than
the unexpected suddenness of the warning conveyed, he did not know by whom and
to whom. Besides himself there was no one in the courtyard as far as he could see.
The cry was not renewed, and his watchful eyes, scanning warily the misty
solitude of Willems' enclosure, were met everywhere only by the stolid
impassiveness of inanimate things: the big sombre-looking tree, the shut- up,
sightless house, the glistening bamboo fences, the damp and drooping bushes
further off--all these things, that condemned to look for ever at the
incomprehensible afflictions or joys of mankind, assert in their aspect of cold
unconcern the high dignity of lifeless matter that surrounds, incurious and
unmoved, the restless mysteries of the ever-changing, of the never-ending life.
Lingard, stepping
aside, put the trunk of the tree between himself and the house, then, moving
cautiously round one of the projecting buttresses, had to tread short in order
to avoid scattering a small heap of black embers upon which he came
unexpectedly on the other side. A thin, wizened, little old woman, who,
standing behind the tree, had been looking at the house, turned towards him
with a start, gazed with faded, expressionless eyes at the intruder, then made
a limping attempt to get away. She seemed, however, to realize directly the
hopelessness or the difficulty of the undertaking, stopped, hesitated, tottered
back slowly; then, after blinking dully, fell suddenly on her knees amongst the
white ashes, and, bending over the heap of smouldering coals, distended her
sunken cheeks in a steady effort to blow up the hidden sparks into a useful
blaze. Lingard looked down on her, but she seemed to have made up her mind that
there was not enough life left in her lean body for anything else than the
discharge of the simple domestic duty, and, apparently, she begrudged him the
least moment of attention. After waiting for awhile, Lingard asked--
"Why did you call,
O daughter?"
"I saw you
enter," she croaked feebly, still grovelling with her face near the ashes
and without looking up, "and I called--the cry of warning. It was her order.
Her order," she repeated, with a moaning sigh.
"And did she
hear?" pursued Lingard, with gentle composure.
Her projecting
shoulder-blades moved uneasily under the thin stuff of the tight body jacket.
She scrambled up with difficulty to her feet, and hobbled away, muttering
peevishly to herself, towards a pile of dry brushwood heaped up against the
fence.
Lingard, looking idly
after her, heard the rattle of loose planks that led from the ground to the
door of the house. He moved his head beyond the shelter of the tree and saw Aïssa
coming down the inclined way into the courtyard. After making a few hurried
paces towards the tree, she stopped with one foot advanced in an appearance of
sudden terror, and her eyes glanced wildly right and left. Her head was
uncovered. A blue cloth wrapped her from her head to foot in close slanting
folds, with one end thrown over her shoulder. A tress of her black hair strayed
across her bosom. Her bare arms pressed down close to her body, with hands open
and outstretched fingers; her slightly elevated shoulders and the backward
inclination of her torso gave her the aspect of one defiant yet shrinking from
a coming blow. She had closed the door of the house behind her; and as she
stood solitary in the unnatural and threatening twilight of the murky day, with
everything unchanged around her, she appeared to Lingard as if she had been
made there, on the spot, out of the black vapours of the sky and of the
sinister gleams of feeble sunshine that struggled, through the thickening
clouds, into the colourless desolation of the world.
After a short but
attentive glance towards the shut- up house, Lingard stepped out from behind
the tree and advanced slowly towards her. The sudden fixity of her--till
then--restless eyes and a slight twitch of her hands were the only signs she
gave at first of having seen him. She made a long stride forward, and putting
herself right in his path, stretched her arms across; her black eyes opened
wide, her lips parted as if in an uncertain attempt to speak--but no sound came
out to break the significant silence of their meeting. Lingard stopped and
looked at her with stern curiosity. After a while he said composedly--
"Let me pass. I
came here to talk to a man. Does he hide? Has he sent you?"
She made a step nearer,
her arms fell by her side, then she put them straight out nearly touching
Lingard's breast.
"He knows not
fear," she said, speaking low, with a forward throw of her head, in a
voice trembling but distinct. "It is my own fear that has sent me here. He
sleeps."
"He has slept long
enough," said Lingard, in measured tones. "I am come--and now is the
time of his waking. Go and tell him this--or else my own voice will call him
up. A voice he knows well."
He put her hands down
firmly and again made as if to pass by her.
"Do not!" she
exclaimed, and fell at his feet as if she had been cut down by a scythe. The
unexpected suddenness of her movement startled Lingard, who stepped back.
"What's
this?" he exclaimed in a wondering whisper --then added in a tone of sharp
command: "Stand up!"
She rose at once and
stood looking at him, timorous and fearless; yet with a fire of recklessness
burning in her eyes that made clear her resolve to pursue her purpose even to
the death. Lingard went on in a severe voice--
"Go out of my
path. You are Omar's daughter, and you ought to know that when men meet in
daylight women must be silent and abide their fate."
"Women!" she
retorted, with subdued vehemence. "Yes, I am a woman! Your eyes see that,
O Rajah Laut, but can you see my life? I also have heard--O man of many
fights--I also have heard the voice of fire- arms; I also have felt the rain of
young twigs and of leaves cut up by bullets fall down about my head; I also
know how to look in silence at angry faces and at strong hands raised high
grasping sharp steel. I also saw men fall dead around me without a cry of fear
and of mourning; and I have watched the sleep of weary fugitives, and looked at
night shadows full of menace and death with eyes that knew nothing but
watchfulness. And," she went on, with a mournful drop in her voice,
"I have faced the heartless sea, held on my lap the heads of those who
died raving from thirst, and from their cold hands took the paddle and worked
so that those with me did not know that one man more was dead. I did all this.
What more have you done? That was my life. What has been yours?"
The matter and the
manner of her speech held Lingard motionless, attentive and approving against
his will. She ceased speaking, and from her staring black eyes with a narrow
border of white above and below, a double ray of her very soul streamed out in
a fierce desire to light up the most obscure designs of his heart. After a long
silence, which served to emphasize the meaning of her words, she added in the
whisper of bitter regret--
"And I have knelt
at your feet! And I am afraid!"
"You," said
Lingard deliberately, and returning her look with an interested gaze, "you
are a woman whose heart, I believe, is great enough to fill a man's breast: but
still you are a woman, and to you, I, Rajah Laut, have nothing lo say."
She listened bending
her head in a movement of forced attention; and his voice sounded to her
unexpected, far off, with the distant and unearthly ring of voices that we hear
in dreams, saying faintly things startling, cruel or absurd, to which there is
no possible reply. To her he had nothing to say! She wrung her hands, glanced
over the courtyard with that eager and distracted look that sees nothing, then
looked up at the hopeless sky of livid grey and drifting black; at the unquiet
mourning of the hot and brilliant heaven that had seen the beginning of her
love, that had heard his entreaties and her answers, that had seen his desire
and her fear; that had seen her joy, her surrender--and his defeat. Lingard
moved a little, and this slight stir near her precipitated her disordered and
shapeless thoughts into hurried words.
"Wait!" she
exclaimed in a stifled voice, and went on disconnectedly and
rapidly--"Stay. I have heard. Men often spoke by the fires . . . men of my
people. And they said of you--the first on the sea--they said that to men's
cries you were deaf in battle, but after . . . No! even while you fought, your
ears were open to the voice of children and women. They said . . . that. Now I,
a woman, I . . ."
She broke off suddenly
and stood before him with dropped eyelids and parted lips, so still now that
she seemed to have been changed into a breathless, an unhearing, an unseeing
figure, without knowledge of fear or hope, of anger or despair. In the
astounding repose that came on her face, nothing moved but the delicate
nostrils that expanded and collapsed quickly, flutteringly, in interrupted
beats, like the wings of a snared bird.
"I am white,"
said Lingard, proudly, looking at her with a steady gaze where simple curiosity
was giving way to a pitying annoyance, "and men you have heard, spoke only
what is true over the evening fires. My ears are open to your prayer. But
listen to me before you speak. For yourself you need not be afraid. You can
come even now with me and you shall find refuge in the household of Syed
Abdulla--who is of your own faith. And this also you must know: nothing that
you may say will change my purpose towards the man who is sleeping--or
hiding--in that house."
Again she gave him the
look that was like a stab, not of anger but of desire; of the intense,
over-powering desire to see in, to see through, to understand everything: every
thought, emotion, purpose; every impulse, every hesitation inside that man;
inside that white-clad foreign being who looked at her, who spoke to her, who
breathed before her like any other man, but bigger, red- faced, white-haired
and mysterious. It was the future clothed in flesh; the to-morrow; the day after;
all the days, all the years of her life standing there before her alive and
secret, with all their good or evil shut up within the breast of that man; of
that man who could be persuaded, cajoled, entreated, perhaps touched, worried;
frightened--who knows?--if only first he could be understood! She had seen a
long time ago whither events were tending. She had noted the contemptuous yet
menacing coldness of Abdulla; she had heard-- alarmed yet
unbelieving--Babalatchi's gloomy hints, covert allusions and veiled suggestions
to abandon the useless white man whose fate would be the price of the peace
secured by the wise and good who had no need of him any more. And he--himself!
She clung to him. There was nobody else. Nothing else. She would try to cling
to him always--all the life! And yet he was far from her. Further every day.
Every day he seemed more distant, and she followed him patiently, hopefully,
blindly, but steadily, through all the devious wanderings of his mind. She
followed as well as she could. Yet at times--very often lately--she had felt
lost like one strayed in the thickets of tangled under- growth of a great
forest. To her the ex-clerk of old Hudig appeared as remote, as brilliant, as
terrible, as necessary, as the sun that gives life to these lands: the sun of
unclouded skies that dazzles and withers; the sun beneficent and wicked--the
giver of light, perfume, and pestilence. She had watched him--watched him
close; fascinated by love, fascinated by danger. He was alone now--but for her;
and she saw--she thought she saw--that he was like a man afraid of something.
Was it possible? He afraid? Of what? Was it of that old white man who was
coming--who had come? Possibly. She had heard of that man ever since she could
remember. The bravest were afraid of him! And now what was in the mind of this
old, old man who looked so strong? What was he going to do with the light of
her life? Put it out? Take it away? Take it away for ever!--for ever!--and
leave her in darkness:-- not in the stirring, whispering, expectant night in
which the hushed world awaits the return of sunshine; but in the night without
end, the night of the grave, where nothing breathes, nothing moves, nothing
thinks-- the last darkness of cold and silence without hope of another sunrise.
She cried--"Your
purpose! You know nothing. I must . . ."
He
interrupted--unreasonably excited, as if she had, by her look, inoculated him
with some of her own distress.
"I know
enough."
She approached, and
stood facing him at arm's length, with both her hands on his shoulders; and he,
surprised by that audacity, closed and opened his eyes two or three times,
aware of some emotion arising within him, from her words, her tone, her
contact; an emotion unknown, singular, penetrating and sad--at the close sight
of that strange woman, of that being savage and tender, strong and delicate,
fearful and resolute, that had got entangled so fatally between their two
lives--his own and that other white man's, the abominable scoundrel.
"How can you
know?" she went on, in a persuasive tone that seemed to flow out of her
very heart--"how can you know? I live with him all the days. All the
nights. I look at him; I see his every breath, every glance of his eye, every
movement of his lips. I see nothing else! What else is there? And even I do not
understand. I do not understand him!--Him!--My life! Him who to me is so great
that his presence hides the earth and the water from my sight!"
Lingard stood straight,
with his hands deep in the pockets of his jacket. His eyes winked quickly,
because she spoke very close to his face. She disturbed him and he had a sense
of the efforts he was making to get hold of her meaning, while all the time he
could not help telling himself that all this was of no use.
She added after a
pause--"There has been a time when I could understand him. When I knew
what was in his mind better than he knew it himself. When I felt him. When I
held him. . . . And now he has escaped."
"Escaped? What?
Gone away!" shouted Lingard.
"Escaped from
me," she said; "left me alone. Alone. And I am ever near him. Yet
alone."
Her hands slipped
slowly off Lingard's shoulders and her arms fell by her side, listless,
discouraged, as if to her--to her, the savage, violent, and ignorant
creature--had been revealed clearly in that moment the tremendous fact of our
isolation, of the loneliness impenetrable and transparent, elusive and
everlasting; of the indestructible loneliness that surrounds, envelopes,
clothes every human soul from the cradle to the grave, and, perhaps, beyond.
"Aye! Very well! I
understand. His face is turned away from you," said Lingard. "Now,
what do you want?"
"I want . . . I
have looked--for help . . . everywhere . . . against men. . . . All men . . . I
do not know. First they came, the invisible whites, and dealt death from afar .
. . then he came. He came to me who was alone and sad. He came; angry with his
brothers; great amongst his own people; angry with those I have not seen: with
the people where men have no mercy and women have no shame. He was of them, and
great amongst them. For he was great?"
Lingard shook his head
slightly. She frowned at him, and went on in disordered haste--
"Listen. I saw
him. I have lived by the side of brave men . . . of chiefs. When he came I was
the daughter of a beggar--of a blind man without strength and hope. He spoke to
me as if I had been brighter than the sunshine--more delightful than the cool
water of the brook by which we met--more . . ." Her anxious eyes saw some
shade of expression pass on her listener's face that made her hold her breath
for a second, and then explode into pained fury so violent that it drove
Lingard back a pace, like an unexpected blast of wind. He lifted both his
hands, incongruously paternal in his venerable aspect, bewildered and soothing,
while she stretched her neck forward and shouted at him.
"I tell you I was
all that to him. I know it! I saw it! . . . There are times when even you white
men speak the truth. I saw his eyes. I felt his eyes, I tell you! I saw him
tremble when I came near-- when I spoke--when I touched him. Look at me! You
have been young. Look at me. Look, Rajah Laut!"
She stared at Lingard
with provoking fixity, then, turning her head quickly, she sent over her
shoulder a glance, full of humble fear, at the house that stood high behind her
back--dark, closed, rickety and silent on its crooked posts.
Lingard's eyes followed
her look, and remained gazing expectantly at the house. After a minute or so he
muttered, glancing at her suspiciously--
"If he has not
heard your voice now, then he must be far away--or dead."
"He is
there," she whispered, a little calmed but still anxious--"he is
there. For three days he waited. Waited for you night and day. And I waited
with him. I waited, watching his face, his eyes, his lips; listening to his
words.--To the words I could not understand.--To the words he spoke in
daylight; to the words he spoke at night in his short sleep. I listened. He
spoke to himself walking up and down here--by the river; by the bushes. And I
followed. I wanted to know--and I could not! He was tormented by things that
made him speak in the words of his own people. Speak to himself--not to me. Not
to me! What was he saying? What was he going to do? Was he afraid of you?--Of
death? What was in his heart? . . . Fear? . . . Or anger? . . . what desire? .
. . what sadness? He spoke; spoke; many words. All the time! And I could not
know! I wanted to speak to him. He was deaf to me. I followed him everywhere,
watching for some word I could understand; but his mind was in the land of his
people--away from me. When I touched him he was angry--so!"
She imitated the
movement of some one shaking off roughly an importunate hand, and looked at
Lingard with tearful and unsteady eyes.
After a short interval
of laboured panting, as if she had been out of breath with running or fighting,
she looked down and went on--
"Day after day,
night after night, I lived watching him--seeing nothing. And my heart was
heavy-- heavy with the presence of death that dwelt amongst us. I could not
believe. I thought he was afraid. Afraid of you! Then I, myself, knew fear. . .
. Tell me, Rajah Laut, do you know the fear without voice--the fear of
silence--the fear that comes when there is no one near--when there is no
battle, no cries, no angry faces or armed hands anywhere? . . . The fear from
which there is no escape!"
She paused, fastened
her eyes again on the puzzled Lingard, and hurried on in a tone of despair--
"And I knew then
he would not fight you! Before --many days ago--I went away twice to make him
obey my desire; to make him strike at his own people so that he could be
mine--mine! O calamity! His hand was false as your white hearts. It struck
forward, pushed by my desire--by his desire of me. . . . It struck that strong
hand, and--O shame!--it killed nobody! Its fierce and lying blow woke up hate
without any fear. Round me all was lies. His strength was a lie. My own people
lied to me and to him. And to meet you--you, the great!--he had no one but me?
But me with my rage, my pain, my weakness. Only me! And to me he would not even
speak. The fool!"
She came up close to
Lingard, with the wild and stealthy aspect of a lunatic longing to whisper out
an insane secret--one of those misshapen, heart-rending, and ludicrous secrets;
one of those thoughts that, like monsters--cruel, fantastic, and mournful,
wander about terrible and unceasing in the night of madness. Lingard looked at
her, astounded but unflinching. She spoke in his face, very low.
"He is all!
Everything. He is my breath, my light, my heart. . . . Go away. . . . Forget
him. . . . He has no courage and no wisdom any more . . . and I have lost my
power. . . . Go away and forget. There are other enemies. . . . Leave him to me.
He had been a man once. . . . You are too great. Nobody can withstand you. . .
. I tried. . . . I know now. . . . I cry for mercy. Leave him to me and go
away."
The fragments of her
supplicating sentences were as if tossed on the crest of her sobs. Lingard,
outwardly impassive, with his eyes fixed on the house, experienced that feeling
of condemnation, deep-seated, persuasive, and masterful; that illogical impulse
of disapproval which is half disgust, half vague fear, and that wakes up in our
hearts in the presence of anything new or unusual, of anything that is not run
into the mould of our own conscience; the accursed feeling made up of disdain,
of anger, and of the sense of superior virtue that leaves us deaf, blind,
contemptuous and stupid before anything which is not like ourselves.
He answered, not
looking at her at first, but speaking towards the house that fascinated him--
"I go away! He wanted me to come--he himself did! . . . You must go away.
You do not know what you are asking for. Listen. Go to your own people. Leave
him. He is . . ."
He paused, looked down
at her with his steady eyes; hesitated, as if seeking an adequate expression;
then snapped his fingers, and said--
"Finish."
She stepped back, her
eyes on the ground, and pressed her temples with both her hands, which she
raised to her head in a slow and ample movement full of unconscious tragedy.
The tone of her words was gentle and vibrating, like a loud meditation. She
said--
"Tell the brook
not to run to the river; tell the river not to run to the sea. Speak loud.
Speak angrily. Maybe they will obey you. But it is in my mind that the brook
will not care. The brook that springs out of the hillside and runs to the great
river. He would not care for your words: he that cares not for the very
mountain that gave him life; he that tears the earth from which he springs.
Tears it, eats it, destroys it--to hurry faster to the river--to the river in
which he is lost for ever. . . . O Rajah Laut! I do not care."
She drew close again to
Lingard, approaching slowly, reluctantly, as if pushed by an invisible hand,
and added in words that seemed to be torn out of her--
"I cared not for
my own father. For him that died. I would have rather . . . You do not know
what I have done . . . I . . ."
"You shall have
his life," said Lingard, hastily.
They stood together,
crossing their glances; she suddenly appeased, and Lingard thoughtful and
uneasy under a vague sense of defeat. And yet there was no defeat. He never
intended to kill the fellow--not after the first moment of anger, a long time
ago. The days of bitter wonder had killed anger; had left only a bitter
indignation and a bitter wish for complete justice. He felt discontented and
surprised. Unexpectedly he had come upon a human being--a woman at that--who
had made him disclose his will before its time. She should have his life. But
she must be told, she must know, that for such men as Willems there was no
favour and no grace.
"Understand,"
he said slowly, "that I leave him his life not in mercy but in
punishment."
She started, watched
every word on his lips, and after he finished speaking she remained still and
mute in astonished immobility. A single big drop of rain, a drop enormous,
pellucid and heavy--like a super- human tear coming straight and rapid from
above, tearing its way through the sombre sky--struck loudly the dry ground
between them in a starred splash. She wrung her hands in the bewilderment of
the new and incomprehensible fear. The anguish of her whisper was more piercing
than the shrillest cry.
"What punishment!
Will you take him away then? Away from me? Listen to what I have done. . . . It
is I who . . ."
"Ah!"
exclaimed Lingard, who had been looking at the house.
"Don't you believe
her, Captain Lingard," shouted Willems from the doorway, where he appeared
with swollen eyelids and bared breast. He stood for a while, his hands grasping
the lintels on each side of the door, and writhed about, glaring wildly, as if
he had been crucified there. Then he made a sudden rush head foremost down the
plankway that responded with hollow, short noises to every footstep.
She heard him. A slight
thrill passed on her face and the words that were on her lips fell back
unspoken into her benighted heart; fell back amongst the mud, the stones--and
the flowers, that are at the bottom of every heart.
WHEN he felt the solid
ground of the courtyard under his feet, Willems pulled himself up in his
headlong rush and moved forward with a moderate gait. He paced stiffly, looking
with extreme exactitude at Lingard's face; looking neither to the right nor to
the left but at the face only, as if there was nothing in the world but those
features familiar and dreaded; that white-haired, rough and severe head upon
which he gazed in a fixed effort of his eyes, like a man trying to read small
print at the full range of human vision. As soon as Willems' feet had left the
planks, the silence which had been lifted up by the jerky rattle of his
footsteps fell down again upon the courtyard; the silence of the cloudy sky and
of the windless air, the sullen silence of the earth oppressed by the aspect of
coming turmoil, the silence of the world collecting its faculties to withstand
the storm. Through this silence Willems pushed his way, and stopped about six
feet from Lingard. He stopped simply because he could go no further. He had
started from the door with the reckless purpose of clapping the old fellow on
the shoulder. He had no idea that the man would turn out to be so tall, so big
and so unapproachable. It seemed to him that he had never, never in his life,
seen Lingard.
He tried to say--
"Do not believe .
. ."
A fit of coughing
checked his sentence in a faint splutter. Directly afterwards he swallowed--as
it were--a couple of pebbles, throwing his chin up in the act; and Lingard, who
looked at him narrowly, saw a bone, sharp and triangular like the head of a
snake, dart up and down twice under the skin of his throat. Then that, too, did
not move. Nothing moved. "Well," said Lingard, and with that word he
came unexpectedly to the end of his speech. His hand in his pocket closed
firmly round the butt of his revolver bulging his jacket on the hip, and he
thought how soon and how quickly he could terminate his quarrel with that man
who had been so anxious to deliver himself into his hands--and how inadequate
would be that ending! He could not bear the idea of that man escaping from him
by going out of life; escaping from fear, from doubt, from remorse into the
peaceful certitude of death. He held him now. And he was not going to let him
go--to let him disappear for ever in the faint blue smoke of a pistol shot. His
anger grew within him. He felt a touch as of a burning hand on his heart. Not
on the flesh of his breast, but a touch on his heart itself, on the palpitating
and untiring particle of matter that responds to every emotion of the soul;
that leaps with joy, with terror, or with anger.
He drew a long breath.
He could see before him the bare chest of the man expanding and collapsing
under the wide-open jacket. He glanced aside, and saw the bosom of the woman
near him rise and fall in quick respirations that moved slightly up and down
her hand, which was pressed to her breast with all the fingers spread out and a
little curved, as if grasping something too big for its span. And nearly a
minute passed. One of those minutes when the voice is silenced, while the
thoughts flutter in the head, like captive birds inside a cage, in rushes
desperate, exhausting and vain.
During that minute of
silence Lingard's anger kept rising, immense and towering, such as a crested
wave running over the troubled shallows of the sands. Its roar filled his cars;
a roar so powerful and distracting that, it seemed to him, his head must burst
directly with the expanding volume of that sound. He looked at that man. That
infamous figure upright on its feet, still, rigid, with stony eyes, as if its
rotten soul had departed that moment and the carcass hadn't had the time yet to
topple over. For the fraction of a second he had the illusion and the fear of
the scoundrel having died there before the enraged glance of his eyes. Willems'
eyelids fluttered, and the unconscious and passing tremor in that stiffly erect
body exasperated Lingard like a fresh outrage. The fellow dared to stir! Dared
to wink, to breathe, to exist; here, right before his eyes! His grip on the
revolver relaxed gradually. As the transport of his rage increased, so also his
contempt for the instruments that pierce or stab, that interpose themselves
between the hand and the object of hate. He wanted another kind of
satisfaction. Naked hands, by heaven! No firearms. Hands that could take him by
the throat, beat down his defence, batter his face into shapeless flesh; hands
that could feel all the desperation of his resistance and overpower it in the
violent delight of a contact lingering and furious, intimate and brutal.
He let go the revolver
altogether, stood hesitating, then throwing his hands out, strode forward--and
everything passed from his sight. He could not see the man, the woman, the
earth, the sky--saw nothing, as if in that one stride he had left the visible
world behind to step into a black and deserted space. He heard screams round
him in that obscurity, screams like the melancholy and pitiful cries of
sea-birds that dwell on the lonely reefs of great oceans. Then suddenly a face
appeared within a few inches of his own. His face. He felt something in his
left hand. His throat . . . Ah! the thing like a snake's head that darts up and
down . . . He squeezed hard. He was back in the world. He could see the quick
beating of eyelids over a pair of eyes that were all whites, the grin of a
drawn-up lip, a row of teeth gleaming through the drooping hair of a moustache
. . . Strong white teeth. Knock them down his lying throat . . . He drew back
his right hand, the fist up to the shoulder, knuckles out. From under his feet
rose the screams of sea-birds. Thousands of them. Something held his legs . . .
What the devil . . . He delivered his blow straight from the shoulder, felt the
jar right up his arm, and realized suddenly that he was striking something
passive and unresisting. His heart sank within him with disappointment, with
rage, with mortification. He pushed with his left arm, opening the hand with
haste, as if he had just perceived that he got hold by accident of something
repulsive--and he watched with stupefied eyes Willems tottering backwards in
groping strides, the white sleeve of his jacket across his face. He watched his
distance from that man increase, while he remained motionless, without being
able to account to himself for the fact that so much empty space had come in between
them. It should have been the other way. They ought to have been very close,
and . . . Ah! He wouldn't fight, he wouldn't resist, he wouldn't defend
himself! A cur! Evidently a cur! . . . He was amazed and
aggrieved--profoundly--bitterly--with the immense and blank desolation of a
small child robbed of a toy. He shouted--unbelieving:
"Will you be a
cheat to the end?"
He waited for some
answer. He waited anxiously with an impatience that seemed to lift him off his
feet. He waited for some word, some sign; for some threatening stir. Nothing!
Only two unwinking eyes glittered intently at him above the white sleeve. He
saw the raised arm detach itself from the face and sink along the body. A white
clad arm, with a big stain on the white sleeve. A red stain. There was a cut on
the cheek. It bled. The nose bled too. The blood ran down, made one moustache
look like a dark rag stuck over the lip, and went on in a wet streak down the
clipped beard on one side of the chin. A drop of blood hung on the end of some
hairs that were glued together; it hung for a while and took a leap down on the
ground. Many more followed, leaping one after another in close file. One
alighted on the breast and glided down instantly with devious vivacity, like a
small insect running away; it left a narrow dark track on the white skin. He
looked at it, looked at the tiny and active drops, looked at what he had done,
with obscure satisfaction, with anger, with regret. This wasn't much like an
act of justice. He had a desire to go up nearer to the man, to hear him speak,
to hear him say something atrocious and wicked that would justify the violence
of the blow. He made an attempt to move, and became aware of a close embrace
round both his legs, just above the ankles. Instinctively, he kicked out with
his foot, broke through the close bond and felt at once the clasp transferred
to his other leg; the clasp warm, desperate and soft, of human arms. He looked
down bewildered. He saw the body of the woman stretched at length, flattened on
the ground like a dark blue rag. She trailed face downwards, clinging to his
leg with both arms in a tenacious hug. He saw the top of her head, the long
black hair streaming over his foot,
all over the beaten
earth, around his boot. He couldn't see his foot for it. He heard the short and
repeated moaning of her breath. He imagined the invisible face close to his
heel. With one kick into that face he could free himself. He dared not stir,
and shouted down--
"Let go! Let go!
Let go!"
The only result of his shouting
was a tightening of the pressure of her arms. With a tremendous effort he tried
to bring his right foot up to his left, and succeeded partly. He heard
distinctly the rub of her body on the ground as he jerked her along. He tried
to disengage himself by drawing up his foot. He stamped. He heard a voice
saying sharply--
"Steady, Captain
Lingard, steady!"
His eyes flew back to
Willems at the sound of that voice, and, in the quick awakening of sleeping
memories, Lingard stood suddenly still, appeased by the clear ring of familiar
words. Appeased as in days of old, when they were trading together, when
Willems was his trusted and helpful companion in out-of-the-way and dangerous
places; when that fellow, who could keep his temper so much better than he
could himself, had spared him many a difficulty, had saved him from many an act
of hasty violence by the timely and good-humoured warning, whispered or
shouted, "Steady, Captain Lingard, steady." A smart fellow. He had
brought him up. The smartest fellow in the islands. If he had only stayed with
him, then all this . . . He called out to Willems--
"Tell her to let
me go or . . ."
He heard Willems
shouting something, waited for awhile, then glanced vaguely down and saw the
woman still stretched out perfectly mute and unstirring, with her head at his
feet. He felt a nervous impatience that, somehow, resembled fear. e
"Tell her to let
go, to go away, Willems, I tell you. I've had enough of this," he cried.
"All right,
Captain Lingard," answered the calm voice of Willems, "she has let
go. Take your foot off her hair; she can't get up."
Lingard leaped aside,
clean away, and spun round quickly. He saw her sit up and cover her face with
both hands, then he turned slowly on his heel and looked at the man. Willems
held himself very straight, but was unsteady on his feet, and moved about
nearly on the same spot, like a tipsy man attempting to preserve his balance.
After gazing at him for a while, Lingard called, rancorous and irritable--
"What have you got
to say for yourself?"
Willems began to walk
towards him. He walked slowly, reeling a little before he took each step, and
Lingard saw him put his hand to his face, then look at it holding it up to his
eyes, as if he had there, concealed in the hollow of the palm, some small
object which he wanted to examine secretly. Suddenly he drew it, with a brusque
movement, down the front of his jacket and left a long smudge.
"That's a fine
thing to do," said Willems.
He stood in front of
Lingard, one of his eyes sunk deep in the increasing swelling of his cheek,
still repeating mechanically the movement of feeling his damaged face; and
every time he did this he pressed the palm to some clean spot on his jacket,
covering the white cotton with bloody imprints as of some deformed and
monstrous hand. Lingard said nothing, looking on. At last Willems left off
staunching the blood and stood, his arms hanging by his side, with his face
stiff and distorted under the patches of coagulated blood; and he seemed as
though he had been set up there for a warning: an incomprehensible figure
marked all over with some awful and symbolic signs of deadly import. Speaking
with difficulty, he repeated in a reproachful tone--
"That was a fine
thing to do."
"After all,"
answered Lingard, bitterly, "I had too good an opinion of you."
"And I of you.
Don't you see that I could have had that fool over there killed and the whole
thing burnt to the ground, swept off the face of the earth. You wouldn't have
found as much as a heap of ashes had I liked. I could have done all that. And I
wouldn't."
"You--could--not.
You dared not. You scoundrel!" cried Lingard.
"What's the use of
calling me names?"
"True,"
retorted Lingard--"there's no name bad enough for you."
There was a short
interval of silence. At the sound of their rapidly exchanged words, Aïssa had
got up from the ground where she had been sitting, in a sorrowful and dejected
pose, and approached the two men. She stood on one side and looked on eagerly,
in a desperate effort of her brain, with the quick and distracted eyes of a
person trying for her life to penetrate the meaning of sentences uttered in a
foreign tongue: the meaning portentous and fateful that lurks in the sounds of mysterious
words; in the sounds surprising, unknown and strange.
Willems let the last
speech of Lingard pass by; seemed by a slight movement of his hand to help it
on its way to join the other shadows of the past. Then he said--
"You have struck
me; you have insulted me . . ."
"Insulted
you!" interrupted Lingard, passionately. "Who--what can insult you .
. . you . . ."
He choked, advanced a
step.
"Steady!
steady!" said Willems calmly. "I tell you I sha'n't fight. Is it
clear enough to you that I sha'n't? I--shall--not--lift--a--finger."
As he spoke, slowly
punctuating each word with a slight jerk of his head, he stared at Lingard, his
right eye open and big, the left small and nearly closed by the swelling of one
half of his face, that appeared all drawn out on one side like faces seen in a
concave glass. And they stood exactly opposite each other: one tall, slight and
disfigured; the other tall, heavy and severe.
Willems went on--
"If I had wanted
to hurt you--if I had wanted to destroy you, it was easy. I stood in the
doorway long enough to pull a trigger--and you know I shoot straight."
"You would have
missed," said Lingard, with assurance. "There is, under heaven, such
a thing as justice."
The sound of that word
on his own lips made him pause, confused, like an unexpected and unanswerable
rebuke. The anger of his outraged pride, the anger of his outraged heart, had
gone out in the blow; and there remained nothing but the sense of some immense
infamy--of something vague, disgusting and terrible, which seemed to surround
him on all sides, hover about him with shadowy and stealthy movements, like a
band of assassins in the darkness of vast and unsafe places. Was there, under
heaven, such a thing as justice? He looked at the man before him with such an
intensity of prolonged glance that he seemed to see right through him, that at
last he saw but a floating and unsteady mist in human shape. Would it blow away
before the first breath of the breeze and leave nothing behind?
The sound of Willems' voice
made him start violently. Willems was saying--
"I have always led
a virtuous life; you know I have. You always praised me for my steadiness; you
know you have. You know also I never stole--if that's what you're thinking of.
I borrowed. You know how much I repaid. It was an error of judgment. But then
consider my position there. I had been a little unlucky in my private affairs,
and had debts. Could I let myself go under before the eyes of all those men who
envied me? But that's all over. It was an error of judgment. I've paid for it.
An error of judgment."
Lingard, astounded into
perfect stillness, looked down. He looked down at Willems' bare feet. Then, as
the other had paused, he repeated in a blank tone--
"An error of
judgment . . ."
"Yes," drawled
out Willems, thoughtfully, and went on with increasing animation: "As I
said, I have always led a virtuous life. More so than Hudig--than you. Yes,
than you. I drank a little, I played cards a little. Who doesn't? But I had
principles from a boy. Yes, principles. Business is business, and I never was
an ass. I never respected fools. They had to suffer for their folly when they
dealt with me. The evil was in them, not in me. But as to principles, it's
another matter. I kept clear of women. It's forbidden--I had no time--and I
despised them. Now I hate them!"
He put his tongue out a
little; a tongue whose pink and moist end ran here and there, like something
independently alive, under his swollen and blackened lip; he touched with the
tips of his fingers the cut on his cheek, felt all round it with precaution:
and the unharmed side of his face appeared for a moment to be preoccupied and
uneasy about the state of that other side which was so very sore and stiff.
He recommenced
speaking, and his voice vibrated as though with repressed emotion of some kind.
"You ask my wife,
when you see her in Macassar, whether I have no reason to hate her. She was
nobody, and I made her Mrs. Willems. A half-caste girl! You ask her how she
showed her gratitude to me. You ask . . . Never mind that. Well, you came and
dumped me here like a load of rubbish; dumped me here and left me with nothing
to do-- nothing good to remember--and damn little to hope for. You left me here
at the mercy of that fool, Almayer, who suspected me of something. Of what?
Devil only knows. But he suspected and hated me from the first; I suppose
because you befriended me. Oh! I could read him like a book. He isn't very
deep, your Sambir partner, Captain Lingard, but he knows how to be
disagreeable. Months passed. I thought I would die of sheer weariness, of my
thoughts, of my regrets And then . . ."
He made a quick step
nearer to Lingard, and as if moved by the same thought, by the same instinct,
by the impulse of his will, Aïssa also stepped nearer to them. They stood in a
close group, and the two men could feel the calm air between their faces
stirred by the light breath of the anxious woman who enveloped them both in the
uncomprehending, in the despairing and wondering glances of her wild and
mournful eyes.
WILLEMS turned a little
from her and spoke lower.
"Look at
that," he said, with an almost imperceptible movement of his head towards
the woman to whom he was presenting his shoulder. "Look at that! Don't
believe her! What has she been saying to you? What? I have been asleep. Had to
sleep at last. I've been waiting for you three days and nights. I had to sleep
some time. Hadn't I? I told her to remain awake and watch for you, and call me
at once. She did watch. You can't believe her. You can't believe any woman. Who
can tell what's inside their heads? No one. You can know nothing. The only
thing you can know is that it isn't anything like what comes through their
lips. They live by the side of you. They seem to hate you, or they seem to love
you; they caress or torment you; they throw you over or stick to you closer
than your skin for some inscrutable and awful reason of their own--which you
can never know! Look at her--and look at me. At me!--her infernal work. What
has she been saying?"
His voice had sunk to a
whisper. Lingard listened with great attention, holding his chin in his hand,
which grasped a great handful of his white beard. His elbow was in the palm of
his other hand, and his eyes were still fixed on the ground. He murmured,
without looking up--
"She begged me for
your life--if you want to know --as if the thing were worth giving or
taking!"
"And for three
days she begged me to take yours," said Willems quickly. "For three
days she wouldn't give me any peace. She was never still. She planned ambushes.
She has been looking for places all over here where I could hide and drop you
with a safe shot as you walked up. It's true. I give you my word."
"Your word,"
muttered Lingard, contemptuously.
Willems took no notice.
"Ah! She is a
ferocious creature," he went on. "You don't know . . . I wanted to
pass the time --to do something--to have something to think about --to forget
my troubles till you came back. And . . . look at her . . . she took me as if I
did not belong to myself. She did. I did not know there was something in me she
could get hold of. She, a savage. I, a civilized European, and clever! She that
knew no more than a wild animal! Well, she found out something in me. She found
it out, and I was lost. I knew it. She tormented me. I was ready to do
anything. I resisted--but I was ready. I knew that too. That frightened me more
than anything; more than my own sufferings; and that was frightful enough, I
assure you."
Lingard listened,
fascinated and amazed like a child listening to a fairy tale, and, when Willems
stopped for breath, he shuffled his feet a little.
"What does he
say?" cried out Aïssa, suddenly.
The two men looked at
her quickly, and then looked at one another.
Willems began again,
speaking hurriedly--
"I tried to do
something. Take her away from those people. I went to Almayer; the biggest
blind fool that you ever . . . Then Abdulla came--and she went away. She took
away with her something of me which I had to get back. I had to do it. As far
as you are concerned, the change here had to happen sooner or later; you
couldn't be master here for ever. It isn't what I have done that torments me.
It is the why. It's the madness that drove me to it. It's that thing that came
over me. That may come again, some day."
"It will do no
harm to anybody then, I promise you," said Lingard, significantly.
Willems looked at him
for a second with a blank stare, then went on--
"I fought against
her. She goaded me to violence and to murder. Nobody knows why. She pushed me
to it persistently, desperately, all the time. Fortunately Abdulla had sense. I
don't know what I wouldn't have done. She held me then. Held me like a
nightmare that is terrible and sweet. By and by it was another life. I woke up.
I found myself beside an animal as full of harm as a wild cat. You don't know
through what I have passed. Her father tried to kill me--and she very nearly
killed him. I believe she would have stuck at nothing. I don't know which was
more terrible! She would have stuck at nothing to defend her own. And when I
think that it was me--me--Willems . . . I hate her. To-morrow she may want my
life. How can I know what's in her? She may want to kill me next!"
He paused in great
trepidation, then added in a scared tone--
"I don't want to
die here."
"Don't you?"
said Lingard, thoughtfully.
Willems turned towards
Aïssa and pointed at her with a bony forefinger.
"Look at her!
Always there. Always near. Always watching, watching . . . for something. Look
at her eyes. Ain't they big? Don't they stare? You wouldn't think she can shut
them like human beings do. I don't believe she ever does. I go to sleep, if I
can, under their stare, and when I wake up I see them fixed on me and moving no
more than the eyes of a corpse. While I am still they are still. By God--she
can't move them till I stir, and then they follow me like a pair of jailers.
They watch me; when I stop they seem to wait patient and glistening till I am
off my guard --for to do something. To do something horrible. Look at them! You
can see nothing in them. They are big, menacing--and empty. The eyes of a
savage; of a damned mongrel, half-Arab, half-Malay. They hurt me! I am white! I
swear to you I can't stand this! Take me away. I am white! All white!"
He shouted towards the
sombre heaven, proclaiming desperately under the frown of thickening clouds the
fact of his pure and superior descent. He shouted, his head thrown up, his arms
swinging about wildly; lean, ragged, disfigured; a tall madman making a great
disturbance about something invisible; a being absurd, repulsive, pathetic, and
droll. Lingard, who was looking down as if absorbed in deep thought, gave him a
quick glance from under his eyebrows: Aïssa stood with clasped hands. At the
other end of the courtyard the old woman, like a vague and decrepit apparition,
rose noiselessly to look, then sank down again with a stealthy movement and
crouched low over the small glow of the fire. Willems' voice filled the enclosure,
rising louder with every word, and then, suddenly, at its very loudest, stopped
short--like water stops running from an over-turned vessel. As soon as it had
ceased the thunder seemed to take up the burden in a low growl coming from the
inland hills. The noise approached in confused mutterings which kept on
increasing, swelling into a roar that came nearer, rushed down the river,
passed close in a tearing crash--and instantly sounded faint, dying away in
monotonous and dull repetitions amongst the endless sinuosities of the lower
reaches. Over the great forests, over all the innumerable people of unstirring
trees--over all that living people immense, motionless, and mute--the silence,
that had rushed in on the track of the passing tumult, remained suspended as
deep and complete as if it had never been disturbed from the beginning of
remote ages. Then, through it, after a time, came to Lingard's ears the voice
of the running river: a voice low, discreet, and sad, like the persistent and
gentle voices that speak of the past in the silence of dreams.
He felt a great
emptiness in his heart. It seemed to him that there was within his breast a
great space without any light, where his thoughts wandered forlornly, unable to
escape, unable to rest, unable to die, to vanish--and to relieve him from the
fearful oppression of their existence. Speech, action, anger, forgiveness, all
appeared to him alike useless and vain, appeared to him unsatisfactory, not
worth the effort of hand or brain that was needed to give them effect. He could
not see why he should not remain standing there, without ever doing anything,
to the end of time. He felt something, something like a heavy chain, that held
him there. This wouldn't do. He backed away a little from Willems and Aïssa, leaving
them close together, then stopped and looked at both. The man and the woman
appeared to him much further than they really were. He had made only about
three steps backward, but he believed for a moment that another step would take
him out of earshot for ever. They appeared to him slightly under life size, and
with a great cleanness of outlines, like figures carved with great precision of
detail and highly finished by a skilful hand. He pulled himself together. The
strong consciousness of his own personality came back to him. He had a notion
of surveying them from a great and inaccessible height.
He said slowly:
"You have been possessed of a devil."
"Yes,"
answered Willems gloomily, and looking at Aïssa. "Isn't it pretty?"
"I've heard this
kind of talk before," said Lingard, in a scornful tone; then paused, and
went on steadily after a while: "I regret nothing. I picked you up by the
waterside, like a starving cat--by God. I regret nothing; nothing that I have
done. Abdulla--twenty others--no doubt Hudig himself, were after me. That's
business--for them. But that you should . . . Money belongs to him who picks it
up and is strong enough to keep it--but this thing was different. It was part
of my life. . . . I am an old fool."
He was. The breath of
his words, of the very words he spoke, fanned the spark of divine folly in his
breast, the spark that made him--the hard-headed, heavy-handed
adventurer--stand out from the crowd, from the sordid, from the joyous,
unscrupulous, and noisy crowd of men that were so much like himself.
Willems said hurriedly:
"It wasn't me. The evil was not in me, Captain Lingard."
"And where else
confound you! Where else?" interrupted Lingard, raising his voice.
"Did you ever see me cheat and lie and steal? Tell me that. Did you? Hey?
I wonder where in perdition you came from when I found you under my feet. . . .
No matter. You will do no more harm."
Willems moved nearer,
gazing upon him anxiously. Lingard went on with distinct deliberation--
"What did you
expect when you asked me to see you? What? You know me. I am Lingard. You lived
with me. You've heard men speak. You knew what you had done. Well! What did you
expect?"
"How can I
know?" groaned Willems, wringing his hands; "I was alone in that
infernal savage crowd. I was delivered into their hands. After the thing was
done, I felt so lost and weak that I would have called the devil himself to my
aid if it had been any good--if he hadn't put in all his work already. In the
whole world there was only one man that had ever cared for me. Only one white
man. You! Hate is better than being alone! Death is better! I expected . . .
anything. Something to expect. Something to take me out of this. Out of her
sight!"
He laughed. His laugh
seemed to be torn out from him against his will, seemed to be brought violently
on the surface from under his bitterness, his self-contempt, from under his
despairing wonder at his own nature.
"When I think that
when I first knew her it seemed to me that my whole life wouldn't be enough to
. . . And now when I look at her! She did it all. I must have been mad. I was
mad. Every time I look at her I remember my madness. It frightens me. . . . And
when I think that of all my life, of all my past, of all my future, of my
intelligence, of my work, there is nothing left but she, the cause of my ruin,
and you whom I have mortally offended . . ."
He hid his face for a
moment in his hands, and when he took them away he had lost the appearance of
comparative calm and gave way to a wild distress.
"Captain Lingard .
. . anything . . . a deserted island . . . anywhere . . . I promise . . ."
"Shut up!"
shouted Lingard, roughly.
He became dumb,
suddenly, completely.
The wan light of the
clouded morning retired slowly from the courtyard, from the clearings, from the
river, as if it had gone unwillingly to hide in the enigmatical solitudes of
the gloomy and silent forests. The clouds over their heads thickened into a low
vault of uniform blackness. The air was still and inexpressibly oppressive.
Lingard unbuttoned his jacket, flung it wide open and, inclining his body
sideways a little, wiped his forehead with his hand, which he jerked sharply
afterwards. Then he looked at Willems and said--
"No promise of
yours is any good to me. I am going to take your conduct into my own hands. Pay
attention to what I am going to say. You are my prisoner."
Willems' head moved
imperceptibly; then he became rigid and still. He seemed not to breathe.
"You shall stay
here," continued Lingard, with sombre deliberation. "You are not fit
to go amongst people. Who could suspect, who could guess, who could imagine
what's in you? I couldn't! You are my mistake. I shall hide you here. If I let
you out you would go amongst unsuspecting men, and lie, and steal, and cheat
for a little money or for some woman. I don't care about shooting you. It would
be the safest way though. But I won't. Do not expect me to forgive you. To
forgive one must have been angry and become contemptuous, and there is nothing in
me now--no anger, no contempt, no disappointment. To me you are not Willems,
the man I befriended and helped through thick and thin, and thought much of . .
. You are not a human being that may be destroyed or forgiven. You are a bitter
thought, a something without a body and that must be hidden . . . You are my
shame."
He ceased and looked
slowly round. How dark it was! It seemed to him that the light was dying
prematurely out of the world and that the air was already dead.
"Of course,"
he went on, "I shall see to it that you don't starve."
"You don't mean to
say that I must live here, Captain Lingard?" said Willems, in a kind of
mechanical voice without any inflections.
"Did you ever hear
me say something I did not mean?" asked Lingard. "You said you didn't
want to die here--well, you must live . . . Unless you change your mind,"
he added, as if in involuntary afterthought.
He looked at Willems
narrowly, then shook his head.
"You are
alone," he went on. "Nothing can help you. Nobody will. You are
neither white nor brown. You have no colour as you have no heart. Your
accomplices have abandoned you to me because I am still somebody to be reckoned
with. You are alone but for that woman there. You say you did this for her.
Well, you have her."
Willems mumbled
something, and then suddenly caught his hair with both his hands and remained
standing so. Aïssa, who had been looking at him, turned to Lingard.
"What did you say,
Rajah Laut?" she cried.
There was a slight stir
amongst the filmy threads of her disordered hair, the bushes by the river sides
trembled, the big tree nodded precipitately over them with an abrupt rustle, as
if waking with a start from a troubled sleep--and the breath of hot breeze
passed, light, rapid, and scorching, under the clouds that whirled round,
unbroken but undulating, like a restless phantom of a sombre sea.
Lingard looked at her
pityingly before he said--
"I have told him
that he must live here all his life . . . and with you."
The sun seemed to have
gone out at last like a flickering light away up beyond the clouds, and in the
stifling gloom of the courtyard the three figures stood colourless and shadowy,
as if surrounded by a black and superheated mist. Aïssa looked at Willems, who
remained still, as though he had been changed into stone in the very act of
tearing his hair. Then she turned her head towards Lingard and shouted--
"You lie! You lie!
. . . White man. Like you all do. You . . . whom Abdulla made small. You
lie!"
Her words rang out
shrill and venomous with her secret scorn, with her overpowering desire to
wound regardless of consequences; in her woman's reckless desire to cause
suffering at any cost, to cause it by the sound of her own voice--by her own
voice, that would carry the poison of her thought into the hated heart.
Willems let his hands
fall, and began to mumble again. Lingard turned his ear towards him
instinctively, caught something that sounded like "Very well"--then
some more mumbling--then a sigh.
"As far as the
rest of the world is concerned," said Lingard, after waiting for awhile in
an attentive attitude, "your life is finished. Nobody will be able to
throw any of your villainies in my teeth; nobody will be able to point at you and
say, 'Here goes a scoundrel of Lingard's up-bringing.' You are buried
here."
"And you think
that I will stay . . . that I will submit?" exclaimed Willems, as if he
had suddenly recovered the power of speech.
"You needn't stay
here--on this spot," said Lingard, drily. "There are the forests--and
here is the river. You may swim. Fifteen miles up, or forty down. At one end
you will meet Almayer, at the other the sea. Take your choice." He burst
into a short, joyless laugh, then added with severe gravity--
"There is also
another way."
"If you want to
drive my soul into damnation by trying to drive me to suicide you will not
succeed," said Willems in wild excitement. "I will live. I shall
repent. I may escape. . . . Take that woman away--she is sin."
A hooked dart of fire
tore in two the darkness of the distant horizon and lit up the gloom of the
earth with a dazzling and ghastly flame. Then the thunder was heard far away,
like an incredibly enormous voice muttering menaces.
Lingard said--
"I don't care what
happens, but I may tell you that without that woman your life is not worth much
--not twopence. There is a fellow here who . . . and Abdulla himself wouldn't
stand on any ceremony. Think of that! And then she won't go."
He began, even while he
spoke, to walk slowly down towards the little gate. He didn't look, but he felt
as sure that Willems was following him as if he had been leading him by a
string. Directly he had passed through the wicket-gate into the big courtyard
he heard a voice, behind his back, saying--
"I think she was
right. I ought to have shot you. I couldn't have been worse off."
"Time yet,"
answered Lingard, without stopping or looking back. "But, you see, you
can't. There is not even that in you."
"Don't provoke me,
Captain Lingard," cried Willems.
Lingard turned round
sharply. Willems and Aïssa stopped. Another forked flash of lightning split up
the clouds overhead, and threw upon their faces a sudden burst of light--a
blaze violent, sinister and fleeting; and in the same instant they were
deafened by a near, single crash of thunder, which was followed by a rushing
noise, like a frightened sigh of the startled earth.
"Provoke
you!" said the old adventurer, as soon as he could make himself heard.
"Provoke you! Hey! What's there in you to provoke? What do I care?"
"It is easy to
speak like that when you know that in the whole world--in the whole world--I
have no friend," said Willems.
"Whose
fault?" said Lingard, sharply.
Their voices, after the
deep and tremendous noise, sounded to them very unsatisfactory--thin and frail,
like the voices of pigmies--and they became suddenly silent, as if on that
account. From up the courtyard Lingard's boatmen came down and passed them,
keeping step in a single file, their paddles on shoulder, and holding their
heads straight with their eyes fixed on the river. Ali, who was walking last,
stopped before Lingard, very stiff and upright. He said--
"That one-eyed
Babalatchi is gone, with all his women. He took everything. All the pots and
boxes. Big. Heavy. Three boxes."
He grinned as if the
thing had been amusing, then added with an appearance of anxious concern,
"Rain coming."
"We return,"
said Lingard. "Make ready."
"Aye, aye,
sir!" ejaculated Ali with precision, and moved on. He had been quartermaster
with Lingard before making up his mind to stay in Sambir as Almayer's head man.
He strutted towards the landing- place thinking proudly that he was not like
those other ignorant boatmen, and knew how to answer properly the very greatest
of white captains.
"You have
misunderstood me from the first, Captain Lingard," said Willems.
"Have I? It's all
right, as long as there is no mistake about my meaning," answered Lingard,
strolling slowly to the landing-place. Willems followed him, and Aïssa followed
Willems.
Two hands were extended
to help Lingard in embarking. He stepped cautiously and heavily into the long
and narrow canoe, and sat in the canvas folding-chair that had been placed in
the middle. He leaned back and turned his head to the two figures that stood on
the bank a little above him. Aïssa's eyes were fastened on his face in a
visible impatience to see him gone. Willems' look went straight above the
canoe, straight at the forest on the other side of the river.
"All right,
Ali," said Lingard, in a low voice.
A slight stir animated
the faces, and a faint murmur ran along the line of paddlers. The foremost man
pushed with the point of his paddle, canted the fore end out of the dead water
into the current; and the canoe fell rapidly off before the rush of brown
water, the stern rubbing gently against the low bank.
"We shall meet
again, Captain Lingard!" cried Willems, in an unsteady voice.
"Never!" said
Lingard, turning half round in his chair to look at Willems. His fierce red
eyes glittered remorselessly over the high back of his seat.
"Must cross the
river. Water less quick over there," said Ali.
He pushed in his turn
now with all his strength, throwing his body recklessly right out over the
stern. Then he recovered himself just in time into the squatting attitude of a
monkey perched on a high shelf, and shouted: "Dayong!"
The paddles struck the
water together. The canoe darted forward and went on steadily crossing the
river with a sideways motion made up of its own speed and the downward drift of
the current.
Lingard watched the
shore astern. The woman shook her hand at him, and then squatted at the feet of
the man who stood motionless. After a while she got up and stood beside him,
reaching up to his head--and Lingard saw then that she had wetted some part of
her covering and was trying to wash the dried blood off the man's immovable
face, which did not seem to know anything about it. Lingard turned away and
threw himself back in his chair, stretching his legs out with a sigh of
fatigue. His head fell forward; and under his red face the white beard lay
fan-like on his breast, the ends of fine long hairs all astir in the faint
draught made by the rapid motion of the craft that carried him away from his prisoner--from
the only thing in his life he wished to hide.
In its course across
the river the canoe came into the line of Willems' sight and his eyes caught
the image, followed it eagerly as it glided, small but distinct, on the dark
background of the forest. He could see plainly the figure of the man sitting in
the middle. All his life he had felt that man behind his back, a reassuring
presence ready with help, with commendation, with advice; friendly in reproof,
enthusiastic in approbation; a man inspiring confidence by his strength, by his
fearlessness, by the very weakness of his simple heart. And now that man was
going away. He must call him back.
He shouted, and his
words, which he wanted to throw across the river, seemed to fall helplessly at
his feet. Aïssa put her hand on his arm in a restraining attempt, but he shook
it off. He wanted to call back his very life that was going away from him. He
shouted again--and this time he did not even hear himself. No use. He would
never return. And he stood in sullen silence looking at the white figure over
there, lying back in the chair in the middle of the boat; a figure that struck
him suddenly as very terrible, heartless and astonishing, with its unnatural
appearance of running over the water in an attitude of languid repose.
For a time nothing on
earth stirred, seemingly, but the canoe, which glided up-stream with a motion
so even and smooth that it did not convey any sense of movement. Overhead, the
massed clouds appeared solid and steady as if held there in a powerful grip,
but on their uneven surface there was a continuous and trembling glimmer, a
faint reflection of the distant lightning from the thunderstorm that had broken
already on the coast and was working its way up the river with low and angry
growls. Willems looked on, as motionless as everything round him and above him.
Only his eyes seemed to live, as they followed the canoe on its course that
carried it away from him, steadily, unhesitatingly, finally, as if it were
going, not up the great river into the momentous excitement of Sambir, but
straight into the past, into the past crowded yet empty, like an old cemetery
full of neglected graves, where lie dead hopes that never return.
From time to time he
felt on his face the passing, warm touch of an immense breath coming from
beyond the forest, like the short panting of an oppressed world. Then the heavy
air round him was pierced by a sharp gust of wind, bringing with it the fresh,
damp feel of the falling rain; and all the innumerable tree-tops of the forests
swayed to the left and sprang back again in a tumultuous balancing of nodding
branches and shuddering leaves. A light frown ran over the river, the clouds
stirred slowly, changing their aspect but not their place, as if they had turned
ponderously over; and when the sudden movement had died out in a quickened
tremor of the slenderest twigs, there was a short period of formidable
immobility above and below, during which the voice of the thunder was heard,
speaking in a sustained, emphatic and vibrating roll, with violent louder
bursts of crashing sound, like a wrathful and threatening discourse of an angry
god. For a moment it died out, and then another gust of wind passed, driving
before it a white mist which filled the space with a cloud of waterdust that
hid suddenly from Willems the canoe, the forests, the river itself; that woke
him up from his numbness in a forlorn shiver, that made him look round
despairingly to see nothing but the whirling drift of rain spray before the
freshening breeze, while through it the heavy big drops fell about him with
sonorous and rapid beats upon the dry earth. He made a few hurried steps up the
courtyard and was arrested by an immense sheet of water that fell all at once
on him, fell sudden and overwhelming from the clouds, cutting his respiration,
streaming over his head, clinging to him, running down his body, off his arms,
off his legs. He stood gasping while the water beat him in a vertical downpour,
drove on him slanting in squalls, and he felt the drops striking him from
above, from everywhere; drops thick, pressed and dashing at him as if flung
from all sides by a mob of infuriated hands. From under his feet a great vapour
of broken water floated up, he felt the ground become soft--melt under him--and
saw the water spring out from the dry earth to meet the water that fell from
the sombre heaven. An insane dread took possession of him, the dread of all
that water around him, of the water that ran down the courtyard towards him, of
the water that pressed him on every side, of the slanting water that drove
across his face in wavering sheets which gleamed pale red with the flicker of
lightning streaming through them, as if fire and water were falling together,
monstrously mixed, upon the stunned earth.
He wanted to run away,
but when he moved it was to slide about painfully and slowly upon that earth
which had become mud so suddenly under his feet. He fought his way up the
courtyard like a man pushing through a crowd, his head down, one shoulder
forward, stopping often, and sometimes carried back a pace or two in the rush
of water which his heart was not stout enough to face. Aïssa followed him step
by step, stopping when he stopped, recoiling with him, moving forward with him
in his toilsome way up the slippery declivity of the courtyard, of that
courtyard, from which everything seemed to have been swept away by the first
rush of the mighty downpour. They could see nothing. The tree, the bushes, the
house, and the fences--all had disappeared in the thickness of the falling
rain. Their hair stuck, streaming, to their heads; their clothing clung to
them, beaten close to their bodies; water ran off them, off their heads over
their shoulders. They moved, patient, upright, slow and dark, in the gleam
clear or fiery of the falling drops, under the roll of unceasing thunder, like
two wandering ghosts of the drowned that, condemned to haunt the water for
ever, had come up from the river to look at the world under a deluge.
On the left the tree
seemed to step out to meet them, appearing vaguely, high, motionless and
patient; with a rustling plaint of its innumerable leaves through which every
drop of water tore its separate way with cruel haste. And then, to the right,
the house surged up in the mist, very black, and clamorous with the quick
patter of rain on its high-pitched roof above the steady splash of the water
running off the eaves. Down the plankway leading to the door flowed a thin and
pellucid stream, and when Willems began his ascent it broke over his foot as if
he were going up a steep ravine in the bed of a rapid and shallow torrent.
Behind his heels two streaming smudges of mud stained for an instant the purity
of the rushing water, and then he splashed his way up with a spurt and stood on
the bamboo platform before the open door under the shelter of the overhanging
eaves-- under shelter at last!
A low moan ending in a
broken and plaintive mutter arrested Willems on the threshold. He peered round
in the half-light under the roof and saw the old woman crouching close to the
wall in a shapeless heap, and while he looked he felt a touch of two arms on
his shoulders. Aïssa! He had forgotten her. He turned, and she clasped him
round the neck instantly, pressing close to him as if afraid of violence or
escape. He stiffened himself in repulsion, in horror, in the mysterious revolt
of his heart; while she clung to him--clung to him as if he were a refuge from
misery, from storm, from weariness, from fear, from despair; and it was on the
part of that being an embrace terrible, enraged and mournful, in which all her
strength went out to make him captive, to hold him for ever.
He said nothing. He
looked into her eyes while he struggled with her fingers about the nape of his
neck, and suddenly he tore her hands apart, holding her arms up in a strong
grip of her wrists, and bending his swollen face close over hers, he said--
"It is all your
doing. You . . ."
She did not understand
him--not a word. He spoke in the language of his people--of his people that
know no mercy and no shame. And he was angry. Alas! he was always angry now,
and always speaking words that she could not understand. She stood in silence,
looking at him through her patient eyes, while he shook her arms a little and
then flung them down.
"Don't follow
me!" he shouted. "I want to be alone --I mean to be left alone!"
He went in, leaving the
door open.
She did not move. What
need to understand the words when they are spoken in such a voice? In that
voice which did not seem to be his voice--his voice when he spoke by the brook,
when he was never angry and always smiling! Her eyes were fixed upon the dark
doorway, but her hands strayed mechanically upwards; she took up all her hair,
and, inclining her head slightly over her shoulder, wrung out the long black
tresses, twisting them persistently, while she stood, sad and absorbed, like
one listening to an inward voice-- the voice of bitter, of unavailing regret.
The thunder had ceased, the wind had died out, and the rain fell perpendicular
and steady through a great pale clearness --the light of remote sun coming
victorious from amongst the dissolving blackness of the clouds. She stood near
the doorway. He was there--alone in the gloom of the dwelling. He was there. He
spoke not. What was in his mind now? What fear? What desire? Not the desire of
her as in the days when he used to smile . . . How could she know? . . .
A sigh coming from the
bottom of her heart, flew out into the world through her parted lips. A sigh
faint, profound, and broken; a sigh full of pain and fear, like the sigh of
those who are about to face the unknown: to face it in loneliness, in doubt,
and without hope. She let go her hair, that fell scattered over her shoulders
like a funeral veil, and she sank down suddenly by the door. Her hands clasped
her ankles; she rested her head on her drawn-up knees, and remained still, very
still, under the streaming mourning of her hair. She was thinking of him; of
the days by the brook; she was thinking of all that had been their love--and she
sat in the abandoned posture of those who sit weeping by the dead, of those who
watch and mourn over a corpse.
ALMAYER propped, alone
on the verandah of his house, with both his elbows on the table, and holding
his head between his hands, stared before him, away over the stretch of
sprouting young grass in his courtyard, and over the short jetty with its
cluster of small canoes, amongst which his big whale-boat floated high, like a
white mother of all that dark and aquatic brood. He stared on the river, past
the schooner anchored in mid-stream, past the forests of the left bank; he
stared through and past the illusion of the material world.
The sun was sinking.
Under the sky was stretched a network of white threads, a network fine and
close- meshed, where here and there were caught thicker white vapours of
globular shape; and to the eastward, above the ragged barrier of the forests,
surged the summits of a chain of great clouds, growing bigger slowly, in
imperceptible motion, as if careful not to disturb the glowing stillness of the
earth and of the sky. Abreast of the house the river was empty but for the
motionless schooner. Higher up, a solitary log came out from the bend above and
went on drifting slowly down the straight reach: a dead and wandering tree
going out to its grave in the sea, between two ranks of trees motionless and
living.
And Almayer sat, his
face in his hands, looking on and hating all this: the muddy river; the faded
blue of the sky; the black log passing by on its first and last voyage; the
green sea of leaves--the sea that glowed shimmered, and stirred above the
uniform and impenetrable gloom of the forests--the joyous sea of living green
powdered with the brilliant dust of oblique sunrays. He hated all this; he
begrudged every day --every minute--of his life spent amongst all these things;
he begrudged it bitterly, angrily, with enraged and immense regret, like a miser
compelled to give up some of his treasure to a near relation. And yet all this
was very precious to him. It was the present sign of a splendid future.
He pushed the table
away impatiently, got up, made a few steps aimlessly, then stood by the
balustrade and again looked at the river--at that river which would have been
the instrument for the making of his fortune if . . . if . . .
"What an
abominable brute!" he said.
He was alone, but he
spoke aloud, as one is apt to do under the impulse of a strong, of an
overmastering thought.
"What a
brute!" he muttered again.
The river was dark now,
and the schooner lay on it, a black, a lonely, and a graceful form, with the
slender masts darting upwards from it in two frail and raking lines. The
shadows of the evening crept up the trees, crept up from bough to bough, till
at last the long sunbeams coursing from the western horizon skimmed lightly
over the topmost branches, then flew upwards amongst the piled-up clouds,
giving them a sombre and fiery aspect in the last flush of light. And suddenly
the light disappeared as if lost in the immensity of the great, blue, and empty
hollow overhead. The sun had set: and the forests became a straight wall of
formless blackness. Above them, on the edge of lingering clouds, a single star
glimmered fitfully, obscured now and then by the rapid flight of high and
invisible vapours.
Almayer fought with the
uneasiness within his breast. He heard Ali, who moved behind him preparing his
evening meal, and he listened with strange attention to the sounds the man
made--to the short, dry bang of the plate put upon the table, to the clink of
glass and the metallic rattle of knife and fork. The man went away. Now he was
coming back. He would speak directly; and Almayer, notwithstanding the
absorbing gravity of his thoughts, listened for the sound of expected words. He
heard them, spoken in English with painstaking distinctness.
"Ready, sir!"
"All right,"
said Almayer, curtly. He did not move. He remained pensive, with his back to the
table upon which stood the lighted lamp brought by Ali. He was thinking: Where
was Lingard now? Halfway down the river probably, in Abdulla's ship. He would
be back in about three days--perhaps less. And then? Then the schooner would
have to be got out of the river, and when that craft was gone they--he and
Lingard-- would remain here; alone with the constant thought of that other man,
that other man living near them! What an extraordinary idea to keep him there
for ever. For ever! What did that mean--for ever? Perhaps a year, perhaps ten
years. Preposterous! Keep him there ten years--or may be twenty! The fellow was
capable of living more than twenty years. And for all that time he would have
to be watched, fed, looked after. There was nobody but Lingard to have such
notions. Twenty years! Why, no! In less than ten years their fortune would be
made and they would leave this place, first for Batavia--yes, Batavia--and then
for Europe. England, no doubt. Lingard would want to go to England. And would
they leave that man here? How would that fellow look in ten years? Very old
probably. Well, devil take him. Nina would be fifteen. She would be rich and
very pretty and he himself would not be so old then. . . ."
Almayer smiled into the
night.
. . . Yes, rich! Why!
Of course! Captain Lingard was a resourceful man, and he had plenty of money
even now. They were rich already; but not enough. Decidedly not enough. Money
brings money. That gold business was good. Famous! Captain Lingard was a
remarkable man. He said the gold was there--and it was there. Lingard knew what
he was talking about. But he had queer ideas. For instance, about Willems. Now
what did he want to keep him alive for? Why?
"That
scoundrel," muttered Almayer again.
"Makan Tuan!"
ejaculated Ali suddenly, very loud in a pressing tone.
Almayer walked to the
table, sat down, and his anxious visage dropped from above into the light
thrown down by the lamp-shade. He helped himself absently, and began to eat in
great mouthfuls.
. . . Undoubtedly,
Lingard was the man to stick to! The man undismayed, masterful and ready. How
quickly he had planned a new future when Willems' treachery destroyed their
established position in Sambir! And the position even now was not so bad. What
an immense prestige that Lingard had with all those people--Arabs, Malays and
all. Ah, it was good to be able to call a man like that father. Fine! Wonder
how much money really the old fellow had. People talked--they exaggerated
surely, but if he had only half of what they said . . .
He drank, throwing his
head up, and fell to again.
. . . Now, if that
Willems had known how to play his cards well, had he stuck to the old fellow he
would have been in his position, he would be now married to Lingard's adopted
daughter with his future assured --splendid . . .
"The beast!"
growled Almayer, between two mouthfuls.
Ali stood rigidly
straight with an uninterested face, his gaze lost in the night which pressed
round the small circle of light that shone on the table, on the glass, on the
bottle, and on Almayer's head as he leaned over his plate moving his jaws.
. . . A famous man
Lingard--yet you never knew what he would do next. It was notorious that he had
shot a white man once for less than Willems had done. For less? . . . Why, for
nothing, so to speak! It was not even his own quarrel. It was about some Malay
returning from pilgrimage with wife and children. Kidnapped, or robbed, or
something. A stupid story-- an old story. And now he goes to see that Willems
and--nothing. Comes back talking big about his prisoner; but after all he said
very little. What did that Willems tell him? What passed between them? The old
fellow must have had something in his mind when he let that scoundrel off. And
Joanna! She would get round the old fellow. Sure. Then he would forgive
perhaps. Impossible. But at any rate he would waste a lot of money on them. The
old man was tenacious in his hates, but also in his affections. He had known
that beast Willems from a boy. They would make it up in a year or so.
Everything is possible: why did he not rush off at first and kill the brute?
That would have been more like Lingard. . . .
Almayer laid down his
spoon suddenly, and pushing his plate away, threw himself back in the chair.
. . . Unsafe. Decidedly
unsafe. He had no mind to share Lingard's money with anybody. Lingard's money
was Nina's money in a sense. And if Willems managed to become friendly with the
old man it would be dangerous for him--Almayer. Such an unscrupulous scoundrel!
He would oust him from his position. He would lie and slander. Everything would
be lost. Lost. Poor Nina. What would become of her? Poor child. For her sake he
must remove that Willems. Must. But how? Lingard wanted to be obeyed.
Impossible to kill Willems. Lingard might be angry. Incredible, but so it was.
He might . . .
A wave of heat passed
through Almayer's body, flushed his face, and broke out of him in copious
perspiration. He wriggled in his chair, and pressed his hands together under
the table. What an awful prospect! He fancied he could see Lingard and Willems
reconciled and going away arm-in-arm, leaving him alone in this God-forsaken
hole--in Sambir--in this deadly swamp! And all his sacrifices, the sacrifice of
his independence, of his best years, his surrender to Lingard's fancies and
caprices, would go for nothing! Horrible! Then he thought of his little
daughter--his daughter!--and the ghastliness of his supposition over- powered
him. He had a deep emotion, a sudden emotion that made him feel quite faint at the
idea of that young life spoiled before it had fairly begun. His dear child's
life! Lying back in his chair he covered his face with both his hands.
Ali glanced down at him
and said, unconcernedly-- "Master finish?"
Almayer was lost in the
immensity of his commiseration for himself, for his daughter, who was--
perhaps--not going to be the richest woman in the world--notwithstanding
Lingard's promises. He did not understand the other's question, and muttered
through his fingers in a doleful tone--
"What did you say?
What? Finish what?"
"Clear up
meza," explained Ali.
"Clear up!"
burst out Almayer, with incomprehensible exasperation. "Devil take you and
the table. Stupid! Chatterer! Chelakka! Get out!"
He leaned forward,
glaring at his head man, then sank back in his seat with his arms hanging
straight down on each side of the chair. And he sat motionless in a meditation
so concentrated and so absorbing, with all his power of thought so deep within
himself, that all expression disappeared from his face in an aspect of staring
vacancy.
Ali was clearing the
table. He dropped negligently the tumbler into the greasy dish, flung there the
spoon and fork, then slipped in the plate with a push amongst the remnants of
food. He took up the dish, tucked up the bottle under his armpit, and went off.
"My hammock!"
shouted Almayer after him.
"Ada! I come
soon," answered Ali from the doorway in an offended tone, looking back
over his shoulder. . . . How could he clear the table and hang the hammock at
the same time. Ya-wa! Those white men were all alike. Wanted everything done at
once. Like children . . .
The indistinct murmur
of his criticism went away, faded and died out together with the soft footfall
of his bare feet in the dark passage.
For some time Almayer
did not move. His thoughts were busy at work shaping a momentous resolution,
and in the perfect silence of the house he believed that he could hear the
noise of the operation as if the work had been done with a hammer. He certainly
felt a thumping of strokes, faint, profound, and startling, somewhere low down
in his breast; and he was aware of a sound of dull knocking, abrupt and rapid,
in his ears. Now and then he held his breath, unconsciously, too long, and had
to relieve himself by a deep expiration that whistled dully through his pursed
lips. The lamp standing on the far side of the table threw a section of a
lighted circle on the floor, where his out- stretched legs stuck out from under
the table with feet rigid and turned up like the feet of a corpse; and his set
face with fixed eyes would have been also like the face of the dead, but for
its vacant yet conscious aspect; the hard, the stupid, the stony aspect of one
not dead, but only buried under the dust, ashes, and corruption of personal
thoughts, of base fears, of selfish desires.
"I will do
it!"
Not till he heard his
own voice did he know that he had spoken. It startled him. He stood up. The
knuckles of his hand, somewhat behind him, were resting on the edge of the
table as he remained still with one foot advanced, his lips a little open, and
thought: It would not do to fool about with Lingard. But I must risk it. It's
the only way I can see. I must tell her. She has some little sense. I wish they
were a thousand miles off already. A hundred thousand miles. I do. And if it
fails. And she blabs out then to Lingard? She seemed a fool. No; probably they
will get away. And if they did, would Lingard believe me? Yes. I never lied to
him. He would believe. I don't know . . . Perhaps he won't. . . . "I must
do it. Must!" he argued aloud to himself.
For a long time he
stood still, looking before him with an intense gaze, a gaze rapt and immobile,
that seemed to watch the minute quivering of a delicate balance, coming to a
rest.
To the left of him, in
the whitewashed wall of the house that formed the back of the verandah, there
was a closed door. Black letters were painted on it proclaiming the fact that
behind that door there was the office of Lingard & Co. The interior had been
furnished by Lingard when he had built the house for his adopted daughter and
her husband, and it had been furnished with reckless prodigality. There was an
office desk, a revolving chair, bookshelves, a safe: all to humour the weakness
of Almayer, who thought all those paraphernalia necessary to successful
trading. Lingard had laughed, but had taken immense trouble to get the things.
It pleased him to make his protégé, his adopted son-in-law, happy. It had been
the sensation of Sambir some five years ago. While the things were being
landed, the whole settlement literally lived on the river bank in front of the
Rajah Laut's house, to look, to wonder, to admire. . . . What a big meza, with
many boxes fitted all over it and under it! What did the white man do with such
a table? And look, look, O Brothers! There is a green square box, with a gold
plate on it, a box so heavy that those twenty men cannot drag it up the bank.
Let us go, brothers, and help pull at the ropes, and perchance we may see
what's inside. Treasure, no doubt. Gold is heavy and hard to hold, O Brothers!
Let us go and earn a recompense from the fierce Rajah of the Sea who shouts
over there, with a red face. See! There is a man carrying a pile of books from
the boat! What a number of books. What were they for? . . . And an old
invalided jurumudi, who had travelled over many seas and had heard holy men
speak in far-off countries, explained to a small knot of unsophisticated
citizens of Sambir that those books were books of magic-- of magic that guides
the white men's ships over the seas, that gives them their wicked wisdom and
their strength; of magic that makes them great, powerful, and irresistible
while they live, and--praise be to Allah!--the victims of Satan, the slaves of
Jehannum when they die.
And when he saw the
room furnished, Almayer had felt proud. In his exultation of an empty-headed
quill-driver, he thought himself, by the virtue of that furniture, at the head
of a serious business. He had sold himself to Lingard for these things--married
the Malay girl of his adoption for the reward of these things and of the great
wealth that must necessarily follow upon conscientious book-keeping. He found
out very soon that trade in Sambir meant something entirely different. He could
not guide Patalolo, control the irrepressible old Sahamin, or restrain the
youthful vagaries of the fierce Bahassoen with pen, ink, and paper. He found no
successful magic in the blank pages of his ledgers; and gradually he lost his
old point of view in the saner appreciation of his situation. The room known as
the office became neglected then like a temple of an exploded superstition. At
first, when his wife reverted to her original savagery, Almayer, now and again,
had sought refuge from her there; but after their child began to speak, to know
him, he became braver, for he found courage and consolation in his unreasoning
and fierce affection for his daughter--in the impenetrable mantle of
selfishness he wrapped round both their lives: round himself, and that young
life that was also his.
When Lingard ordered
him to receive Joanna into his house, he had a truckle bed put into the
office-- the only room he could spare. The big office desk was pushed on one
side, and Joanna came with her little shabby trunk and with her child and took
possession in her dreamy, slack, half-asleep way; took possession of the dust,
dirt, and squalor, where she appeared naturally at home, where she dragged a
melancholy and dull existence; an existence made up of sad remorse and
frightened hope, amongst the hopeless disorder--the senseless and vain decay of
all these emblems of civilized commerce. Bits of white stuff; rags yellow,
pink, blue: rags limp, brilliant and soiled, trailed on the floor, lay on the
desk amongst the sombre covers of books soiled, grimy, but stiff-backed, in
virtue, perhaps, of their European origin. The biggest set of bookshelves was
partly hidden by a petticoat, the waist- band of which was caught upon the back
of a slender book pulled a little out of the row so as to make an improvised
clothespeg. The folding canvas bedstead stood nearly in the middle of the room,
stood anyhow, parallel to no wall, as if it had been, in the process of
transportation to some remote place, dropped casually there by tired bearers.
And on the tumbled blankets that lay in a disordered heap on its edge, Joanna
sat almost all day with her stockingless feet upon one of the bed pillows that
were somehow always kicking about the floor. She sat there, vaguely tormented
at times by the thought of her absent husband, but most of the time thinking
tearfully of nothing at all, looking with swimming eyes at her little son--at
the big- headed, pasty-faced, and sickly Louis Willems--who rolled a glass
inkstand, solid with dried ink, about the floor, and tottered after it with the
portentous gravity of demeanour and absolute absorption by the business in hand
that characterize the pursuits of early childhood. Through the half-open
shutter a ray of sunlight, a ray merciless and crude, came into the room, beat
in the early morning upon the safe in the far-off corner, then, travelling
against the sun, cut at midday the big desk in two with its solid and
clean-edged brilliance; with its hot brilliance in which a swarm of flies
hovered in dancing flight over some dirty plate forgotten there amongst yellow
papers for many a day. And towards the evening the cynical ray seemed to cling
to the ragged petticoat, lingered on it with wicked enjoyment of that misery it
had exposed all day; lingered on the corner of the dusty bookshelf, in a red
glow intense and mocking, till it was suddenly snatched by the setting sun out
of the way of the coming night. And the night entered the room. The night
abrupt, impenetrable and all-filling with its flood of darkness; the night cool
and merciful; the blind night that saw nothing, but could hear the fretful
whimpering of the child, the creak of the bedstead, Joanna's deep sighs as she
turned over, sleepless, in the confused conviction of her wickedness, thinking
of that man masterful, fair-headed, and strong--a man hard perhaps, but her
husband; her clever and handsome husband to whom she had acted so cruelly on
the advice of bad people, if her own people; and of her poor, dear, deceived
mother.
To Almayer, Joanna's
presence was a constant worry, a worry unobtrusive yet intolerable; a constant,
but mostly mute, warning of possible danger. In view of the absurd softness of
Lingard's heart, every one in whom Lingard manifested the slightest interest
was to Almayer a natural enemy. He was quite alive to that feeling, and in the
intimacy of the secret intercourse with his inner self had often congratulated
himself upon his own wide-awake comprehension of his position. In that way, and
impelled by that motive, Almayer had hated many and various persons at various
times. But he never had hated and feared anybody so much as he did hate and
fear Willems. Even after Willems' treachery, which seemed to remove him beyond
the pale of all human sympathy, Almayer mistrusted the situation and groaned in
spirit every time he caught sight of Joanna.
He saw her very seldom
in the daytime. But in the short and opal-tinted twilights, or in the azure
dusk of starry evenings, he often saw, before he slept, the slender and tall
figure trailing to and fro the ragged tail of its white gown over the dried mud
of the riverside in front of the house. Once or twice when he sat late on the
verandah, with his feet upon the deal table on a level with the lamp, reading
the seven months' old copy of the North China Herald, brought by Lingard, he
heard the stairs creak, and, looking round the paper, he saw her frail and
meagre form rise step by step and toil across the verandah, carrying with
difficulty the big, fat child, whose head, lying on the mother's bony shoulder,
seemed of the same size as Joanna's own. Several times she had assailed him
with tearful clamour or mad entreaties: asking about her husband, wanting to
know where he was, when he would be back; and ending every such outburst with
despairing and incoherent self-reproaches that were absolutely incomprehensible
to Almayer. On one or two occasions she had overwhelmed her host with
vituperative abuse, making him responsible for her husband's absence. Those
scenes, begun without any warning, ended abruptly in a sobbing flight and a
bang of the door; stirred the house with a sudden, a fierce, and an evanescent
disturbance; like those inex plicable whirlwinds that rise, run, and vanish
without apparent cause upon the sun-scorched dead level of arid and lamentable
plains.
But to-night the house
was quiet, deadly quiet, while Almayer stood still, watching that delicate
balance where he was weighing all his chances: Joanna's intelligence, Lingard's
credulity, Willems' reckless audacity, desire to escape, readiness to seize an
unexpected opportunity. He weighed, anxious and attentive, his fears and his
desires against the tremendous risk of a quarrel with Lingard. . . . Yes.
Lingard would be angry. Lingard might suspect him of some connivance in his
prisoner's escape--but surely he would not quarrel with him--Almayer-- about
those people once they were gone--gone to the devil in their own way. And then
he had hold of Lingard through the little girl. Good. What an annoyance! A
prisoner! As if one could keep him in there. He was bound to get away some time
or other. Of course. A situation like that can't last. Anybody could see that.
Lingard's eccentricity passed all bounds. You may kill a man, but you mustn't
torture him. It was almost criminal. It caused worry, trouble, and
unpleasantness. . . . Almayer for a moment felt very angry with Lingard. He
made him responsible for the anguish he suffered from, for the anguish of doubt
and fear; for compelling him-- the practical and innocent Almayer--to such
painful efforts of mind in order to find out some issue for absurd situations
created by the unreasonable sentimentality of Lingard's unpractical impulses.
"Now if the fellow
were dead it would be all right," said Almayer to the verandah.
He stirred a little,
and scratching his nose thoughtfully, revelled in a short flight of fancy,
showing him his own image crouching in a big boat, that floated arrested--say
fifty yards off--abreast of Willems' landing-place. In the bottom of the boat
there was a gun. A loaded gun. One of the boatmen would shout, and Willems
would answer--from the bushes. The rascal would be suspicious. Of course. Then
the man would wave a piece of paper urging Willems to come to the landing-place
and receive an important message. "From the Rajah Laut" the man would
yell as the boat edged in-shore, and that would fetch Willems out. Wouldn't it?
Rather! And Almayer saw himself jumping up at the right moment, taking aim,
pulling the trigger--and Willems tumbling over, his head in the water--the
swine!
He seemed to hear the
report of the shot. It made him thrill from head to foot where he stood. . . .
How simple! . . . Unfortunate . . . Lingard . . . He sighed, shook his head.
Pity. Couldn't be done. And couldn't leave him there either! Suppose the Arabs
were to get hold of him again--for instance to lead an expedition up the river!
Goodness only knows what harm would come of it. . . .
The balance was at rest
now and inclining to the side of immediate action. Almayer walked to the door,
walked up very close to it, knocked loudly, and turned his head away, looking
frightened for a moment at what he had done. After waiting for a while he put
his ear against the panel and listened. Nothing. He composed his features into
an agreeable expression while he stood listening and thinking to himself: I
hear her. Crying. Eh? I believe she has lost the little wits she had and is
crying night and day since I began to prepare her for the news of her husband's
death--as Lingard told me. I wonder what she thinks. It's just like father to
make me invent all these stories for nothing at all. Out of kindness. Kindness!
Damn! . . . She isn't deaf, surely.
He knocked again, then
said in a friendly tone, grinning benevolently at the closed door--
"It's me, Mrs.
Willems. I want to speak to you. I have . . . have . . . important news. . .
."
"What is it?"
"News,"
repeated Almayer, distinctly. "News about your husband. Your husband! . .
. Damn him!" he added, under his breath.
He heard a stumbling
rush inside. Things were overturned. Joanna's agitated voice cried--
"News! What? What?
I am coming out."
"No," shouted
Almayer. "Put on some clothes, Mrs. Willems, and let me in. It's . . .
very confidential. You have a candle, haven't you?"
She was knocking
herself about blindly amongst the furniture in that room. The candlestick was
upset. Matches were struck ineffectually. The matchbox fell. He heard her drop
on her knees and grope over the floor while she kept on moaning in maddened
distraction.
"Oh, my God! News!
Yes . . . yes. . . . Ah! where . . . where . . . candle. Oh, my God! . . . I
can't find . . . Don't go away, for the love of Heaven . . ."
"I don't want to
go away," said Almayer, impatiently, through the keyhole; "but look
sharp. It's confi . . . it's pressing."
He stamped his foot
lightly, waiting with his hand on the door-handle. He thought anxiously: The
woman's a perfect idiot. Why should I go away? She will be off her head. She
will never catch my meaning. She's too stupid.
She was moving now
inside the room hurriedly and in silence. He waited. There was a moment of
perfect stillness in there, and then she spoke in an exhausted voice, in words
that were shaped out of an expiring sigh--out of a sigh light and profound,
like words breathed out by a woman before going off into a dead faint--
"Come in."
He pushed the door.
Ali, coming through the passage with an armful of pillows and blankets pressed
to his breast high up under his chin, caught sight of his master before the
door closed behind him. He was so astonished that he dropped his bundle and
stood staring at the door for a long time. He heard the voice of his master
talking. Talking to that Sirani woman! Who was she? He had never thought about
that really. He speculated for a while hazily upon things in general. She was a
Sirani woman-- and ugly. He made a disdainful grimace, picked up the bedding,
and went about his work, slinging the hammock between two uprights of the
verandah. . . . Those things did not concern him. She was ugly, and brought
here by the Rajah Laut, and his master spoke to her in the night. Very well.
He, Ali, had his work to do. Sling the hammock--go round and see that the
watchmen were awake--take a look at the moorings of the boats, at the padlock
of the big storehouse--then go to sleep. To sleep! He shivered pleasantly. He
leaned with both arms over his master's hammock and fell into a light doze.
A scream, unexpected,
piercing--a scream beginning at once in the highest pitch of a woman's voice
and then cut short, so short that it suggested the swift work of death--caused
Ali to jump on one side away from the hammock, and the silence that succeeded
seemed to him as startling as the awful shriek. He was thunderstruck with
surprise. Almayer came out of the office, leaving the door ajar, passed close
to his servant without taking any notice, and made straight for the
water-chatty hung on a nail in a draughty place. He took it down and came back,
missing the petrified Ali by an inch. He moved with long strides, yet,
notwithstanding his haste, stopped short before the door, and, throwing his
head back, poured a thin stream of water down his throat. While he came and
went, while he stopped to drink, while he did all this, there came steadily
from the dark room the sound of feeble and persistent crying, the crying of a
sleepy and frightened child. After he had drunk, Almayer went in, closing the
door carefully.
Ali did not budge. That
Sirani woman shrieked! He felt an immense curiosity very unusual to his stolid
disposition. He could not take his eyes off the door. Was she dead in there?
How interesting and funny! He stood with open mouth till he heard again the
rattle of the door-handle. Master coming out. He pivoted on his heels with
great rapidity and made believe to be absorbed in the contemplation of the
night outside. He heard Almayer moving about behind his back. Chairs were
displaced. His master sat down.
"Ali," said
Almayer.
His face was gloomy and
thoughtful. He looked at his head man, who had approached the table, then he
pulled out his watch. It was going. Whenever Lingard was in Sambir Almayer's
watch was going. He would set it by the cabin clock, telling himself every time
that he must really keep that watch going for the future. And every time, when
Lingard went away, he would let it run down and would measure his weariness by
sunrises and sunsets in an apathetic indifference to mere hours; to hours only;
to hours that had no importance in Sambir life, in the tired stagnation of
empty days; when nothing mattered to him but the quality of guttah and the size
of rattans; where there were no small hopes to be watched for; where to him
there was nothing interesting, nothing supportable, nothing desirable to
expect; nothing bitter but the slowness of the passing days; nothing sweet but
the hope, the distant and glorious hope-- the hope wearying, aching and
precious, of getting away.
He looked at the watch.
Half-past eight. Ali waited stolidly.
"Go to the
settlement," said Almayer, "and tell Mahmat Banjer to come and speak
to me to-night."
Ali went off muttering.
He did not like his errand. Banjer and his two brothers were Bajow vagabonds
who had appeared lately in Sambir and had been allowed to take possession of a
tumbledown abandoned hut, on three posts, belonging to Lingard & Co., and
standing just outside their fence. Ali disapproved of the favour shown to those
strangers. Any kind of dwelling was valuable in Sambir at that time, and if
master did not want that old rotten house he might have given it to him, Ali,
who was his servant, instead of bestowing it upon those bad men. Everybody knew
they were bad. It was well known that they had stolen a boat from Hinopari, who
was very aged and feeble and had no sons; and that afterwards, by the truculent
recklessness of their demeanour, they had frightened the poor old man into
holding his tongue about it. Yet everybody knew of it. It was one of the
tolerated scandals of Sambir, disapproved and accepted, a manifestation of that
base acquiescence in success, of that inexpressed and cowardly toleration of
strength, that exists, infamous and irremediable, at the bottom of all hearts,
in all societies; whenever men congregate; in bigger and more virtuous places
than Sambir, and in Sambir also, where, as in other places, one man could steal
a boat with impunity while another would have no right to look at a paddle.
Almayer, leaning back
in his chair, meditated. The more he thought, the more he felt convinced that
Banjer and his brothers were exactly the men he wanted. Those fellows were sea
gipsies, and could disappear without attracting notice; and if they returned,
nobody--and Lingard least of all--would dream of seeking information from them.
Moreover, they had no personal interest of any kind in Sambir affairs--had
taken no sides--would know nothing anyway.
He called in a strong
voice: "Mrs. Willems!"
She came out quickly,
almost startling him, so much did she appear as though she had surged up
through the floor, on the other side of the table. The lamp was between them,
and Almayer moved it aside, looking up at her from his chair. She was crying.
She was crying gently, silently, in a ceaseless welling up of tears that did
not fall in drops, but seemed to overflow in a clear sheet from under her
eyelids-- seemed to flow at once all over her face, her cheeks, and over her
chin that glistened with moisture in the light. Her breast and her shoulders
were shaken repeatedly by a convulsive and noiseless catching in her breath,
and after every spasmodic sob her sorrowful little head, tied up in a red
kerchief, trembled on her long neck, round which her bony hand gathered and
clasped the disarranged dress.
"Compose yourself,
Mrs. Willems," said Almayer.
She emitted an
inarticulate sound that seemed to be a faint, a very far off, a hardly audible
cry of mortal distress. Then the tears went on flowing in profound stillness.
"You must
understand that I have told you all this because I am your friend--real
friend," said Almayer, after looking at her for some time with visible
dissatisfaction. "You, his wife, ought to know the danger he is in.
Captain Lingard is a terrible man, you know."
She blubbered out,
sniffing and sobbing together.
"Do you . . . you
. . . speak . . . the . . . the truth now?"
"Upon my word of
honour. On the head of my child," protested Almayer. "I had to
deceive you till now because of Captain Lingard. But I couldn't bear it. Think
only what a risk I run in telling you --if ever Lingard was to know! Why should
I do it? Pure friendship. Dear Peter was my colleague in Macassar for years,
you know."
"What shall I do .
. . what shall I do!" she exclaimed, faintly, looking around on every side
as if she could not make up her mind which way to rush off.
"You must help him
to clear out, now Lingard is away. He offended Lingard, and that's no joke.
Lingard said he would kill him. He will do it, too," said Almayer,
earnestly.
She wrung her hands.
"Oh! the wicked man. The wicked, wicked man!" she moaned, swaying her
body from side to side.
"Yes. Yes! He is
terrible," assented Almayer. "You must not lose any time. I say! Do
you understand me, Mrs. Willems? Think of your husband. Of your poor husband.
How happy he will be. You will bring him his life--actually his life. Think of
him."
She ceased her swaying
movement, and now, with her head sunk between her shoulders, she hugged herself
with both her arms; and she stared at Almayer with wild eyes, while her teeth
chattered, rattling violently and uninterruptedly, with a very loud sound, in
the deep peace of the house.
"Oh! Mother of
God!" she wailed. "I am a miserable woman. Will he forgive me? The
poor, innocent man. Will he forgive me? Oh, Mr. Almayer, he is so severe. Oh!
help me. . . . I dare not. . . . You don't know what I've done to him. . . . I daren't!
. . . I can't! . . . God help me!"
The last words came in
a despairing cry. Had she been flayed alive she could not have sent to heaven a
more terrible, a more heartrending and anguished plaint.
"Sh! Sh!"
hissed Almayer, jumping up. "You will wake up everybody with your
shouting."
She kept on sobbing
then without any noise, and Almayer stared at her in boundless astonishment.
The idea that, maybe, he had done wrong by confiding in her, upset him so much
that for a moment he could not find a connected thought in his head.
At last he said:
"I swear to you that your husband is in such a position that he would
welcome the devil . . . listen well to me . . . the devil himself if the devil
came to him in a canoe. Unless I am much mistaken,'' he added, under his
breath. Then again, loudly: "If you have any little difference to make up
with him, I assure you--I swear to you--this is your time!"
The ardently persuasive
tone of his words--he thought--would have carried irresistible conviction to a
graven image. He noticed with satisfaction that Joanna seemed to have got some
inkling of his meaning. He continued, speaking slowly--
"Look here, Mrs.
Willems. I can't do anything. Daren't. But I will tell you what I will do.
There will come here in about ten minutes a Bugis man-- you know the language;
you are from Macassar. He has a large canoe; he can take you there. To the new
Rajah's clearing, tell him. They are three brothers, ready for anything if you
pay them . . . you have some money. Haven't you?"
She stood--perhaps
listening--but giving no sign of intelligence, and stared at the floor in
sudden immobility, as if the horror of the situation, the overwhelming sense of
her own wickedness and of her husband's great danger, had stunned her brain,
her heart, her will--had left her no faculty but that of breathing and of
keeping on her feet. Almayer swore to himself with much mental profanity that
he had never seen a more useless, a more stupid being.
"D'ye hear
me?" he said, raising his voice. "Do try to understand. Have you any
money? Money. Dollars. Guilders. Money! What's the matter with you?"
Without raising her
eyes she said, in a voice that sounded weak and undecided as if she had been
making a desperate effort of memory--
"The house has
been sold. Mr. Hudig was angry."
Almayer gripped the
edge of the table with all his strength. He resisted manfully an almost
uncontrollable impulse to fly at her and box her ears.
"It was sold for
money, I suppose," he said with studied and incisive calmness. "Have
you got it? Who has got it?"
She looked up at him,
raising her swollen eyelids with a great effort, in a sorrowful expression of
her drooping mouth, of her whole besmudged and tear- stained face. She
whispered resignedly--
"Leonard had some.
He wanted to get married. And uncle Antonio; he sat at the door and would not
go away. And Aghostina--she is so poor . . . and so many, many children--little
children. And Luiz the engineer. He never said a word against my husband. Also
our cousin Maria. She came and shouted, and my head was so bad, and my heart
was worse. Then cousin Salvator and old Daniel da Souza, who . . ."
Almayer had listened to
her speechless with rage. He thought: I must give money now to that idiot.
Must! Must get her out of the way now before Lingard is back. He made two
attempts to speak before he managed to burst out--
"I don't want to
know their blasted names! Tell me, did all those infernal people leave you
anything? To you! That's what I want to know!"
"I have two
hundred and fifteen dollars," said Joanna, in a frightened tone.
Almayer breathed
freely. He spoke with great friendliness--
"That will do. It
isn't much, but it will do. Now when the man comes I will be out of the way.
You speak to him. Give him some money; only a little, mind! And promise more.
Then when you get there you will be guided by your husband, of course. And
don't forget to tell him that Captain Lingard is at the mouth of the river--the
northern entrance. You will remember. Won't you? The northern branch. Lingard
is--death."
Joanna shivered.
Almayer went on rapidly--
"I would have
given you money if you had wanted it. 'Pon my word! Tell your husband I've sent
you to him. And tell him not to lose any time. And also say to him from me that
we shall meet--some day. That I could not die happy unless I met him once more.
Only once. I love him, you know. I prove it. Tremendous risk to me--this
business is!"
Joanna snatched his
hand and before he knew what she would be at, pressed it to her lips.
"Mrs. Willems!
Don't. What are you . . ." cried the abashed Almayer, tearing his hand
away.
"Oh, you are
good!" she cried, with sudden exaltation, "You are noble . . . I
shall pray every day . . . to all the saints . . . I shall . . ."
"Never mind . . .
never mind!" stammered out Almayer, confusedly, without knowing very well
what he was saying. "Only look out for Lingard. . . . I am happy to be
able . . . in your sad situation . . . believe me. . . . "
They stood with the
table between them, Joanna looking down, and her face, in the half-light above
the lamp, appeared like a soiled carving of old ivory-- a carving, with
accentuated anxious hollows, of old, very old ivory. Almayer looked at her,
mistrustful, hopeful. He was saying to himself: How frail she is! I could upset
her by blowing at her. She seems to have got some idea of what must be done,
but will she have the strength to carry it through? I must trust to luck now!
Somewhere far in the
back courtyard Ali's voice rang suddenly in angry remonstrance--
"Why did you shut the
gate, O father of all mischief? You a watchman! You are only a wild man. Did I
not tell you I was coming back? You . . ."
"I am off, Mrs.
Willems," exclaimed Almayer. "That man is here--with my servant. Be
calm. Try to . . ."
He heard the footsteps
of the two men in the passage, and without finishing his sentence ran rapidly
down the steps towards the riverside.
FOR the next half-hour
Almayer, who wanted to give Joanna plenty of time, stumbled amongst the lumber
in distant parts of his enclosure, sneaked along the fences; or held his
breath, flattened against grass walls behind various outhouses: all this to escape
Ali's inconveniently zealous search for his master. He heard him talk with the
head watchman--sometimes quite close to him in the darkness--then moving off,
coming back, wondering, and, as the time passed, growing uneasy.
"He did not fall
into the river?--say, thou blind watcher!" Ali was growling in a bullying
tone, to the other man. "He told me to fetch Mahmat, and when I came back
swiftly I found him not in the house. There is that Sirani woman there, so that
Mahmat cannot steal anything, but it is in my mind, the night will be half gone
before I rest."
He shouted--
"Master! O master!
O mast . . ."
"What are you
making that noise for?" said Almayer, with severity, stepping out close to
them.
The two Malays leaped
away from each other in their surprise.
"You may go. I
don't want you any more tonight, Ali," went on Almayer. "Is Mahmat
there?"
"Unless the
ill-behaved savage got tired of waiting. Those men know not politeness. They
should not be spoken to by white men," said Ali, resentfully.
Almayer went towards
the house, leaving his servants to wonder where he had sprung from so
unexpectedly. The watchman hinted obscurely at powers of invisibility possessed
by the master, who often at night . . . Ali interrupted him with great scorn.
Not every white man has the power. Now, the Rajah Laut could make himself
invisible. Also, he could be in two places at once, as everybody knew; except
he--the useless watchman--who knew no more about white men than a wild pig!
Ya-wa!
And Ali strolled
towards his hut, yawning loudly.
As Almayer ascended the
steps he heard the noise of a door flung to, and when he entered the verandah
he saw only Mahmat there, close to the doorway of the passage. Mahmat seemed to
be caught in the very act of slinking away, and Almayer noticed that with
satisfaction. Seeing the white man, the Malay gave up his attempt and leaned
against the wall. He was a short, thick, broad-shouldered man with very dark
skin and a wide, stained, bright-red mouth that uncovered, when he spoke, a
close row of black and glistening teeth. His eyes were big, prominent, dreamy
and restless. He said sulkily, looking all over the place from under his
eyebrows--
"White Tuan, you
are great and strong--and I a poor man. Tell me what is your will, and let me
go in the name of God. It is late."
Almayer examined the
man thoughtfully. How could he find out whether . . . He had it! Lately he had
employed that man and his two brothers as extra boatmen to carry stores,
provisions, and new axes to a camp of rattan cutters some distance up the
river. A three days' expedition. He would test him now in that way. He said
negligently--
"I want you to
start at once for the camp, with surat for the Kavitan. One dollar a day."
The man appeared
plunged in dull hesitation, but Almayer, who knew his Malays, felt pretty sure
from his aspect that nothing would induce the fellow to go. He urged--
"It is
important--and if you are swift I shall give two dollars for the last
day."
"No, Tuan. We do
not go," said the man, in a hoarse whisper.
"Why?"
"We start on
another journey."
"Where?"
"To a place we
know of," said Mahmat, a little louder, in a stubborn manner, and looking
at the floor.
Almayer experienced a
feeling of immense joy. He said, with affected annoyance--
"You men live in
my house and it is as if it were your own. I may want my house soon."
Mahmat looked up.
"We are men of the
sea and care not for a roof when we have a canoe that will hold three, and a
paddle apiece. The sea is our house. Peace be with you, Tuan."
He turned and went away
rapidly, and Almayer heard him directly afterwards in the courtyard calling to
the watchman to open the gate. Mahmat passed through the gate in silence, but
before the bar had been put up behind him he had made up his mind that if the
white man ever wanted to eject him from his hut, he would burn it and also as
many of the white man's other buildings as he could safely get at. And he began
to call his brothers before he was inside the dilapidated dwelling.
"All's well!"
muttered Almayer to himself, taking some loose Java tobacco from a drawer in
the table. "Now if anything comes out I am clear. I asked the man to go up
the river. I urged him. He will say so himself. Good."
He began to charge the
china bowl of his pipe, a pipe with a long cherry stem and a curved mouth-
piece, pressing the tobacco down with his thumb and thinking: No. I sha'n't see
her again. Don't want to. I will give her a good start, then go in chase-- and
send an express boat after father. Yes! that's it.
He approached the door
of the office and said, holding his pipe away from his lips--
"Good luck to you,
Mrs. Willems. Don't lose any time. You may get along by the bushes; the fence
there is out of repair. Don't lose time. Don't forget that it is a matter of .
. . life and death. And don't forget that I know nothing. I trust you."
He heard inside a noise
as of a chest-lid falling down. She made a few steps. Then a sigh, profound and
long, and some faint words which he did not catch. He moved away from the door
on tiptoe, kicked off his slippers in a corner of the verandah, then entered
the passage puffing at his pipe; entered cautiously in a gentle creaking of
planks and turned into a curtained entrance to the left. There was a big room.
On the floor a small binnacle lamp--that had found its way to the house years
ago from the lumber-room of the Flash--did duty for a night- light. It
glimmered very small and dull in the great darkness. Almayer walked to it, and
picking it up revived the flame by pulling the wick with his fingers, which he
shook directly after with a grimace of pain. Sleeping shapes, covered--head and
all--with white sheets, lay about on the mats on the floor. In the middle of
the room a small cot, under a square white mosquito net, stood--the only piece
of furniture between the four walls--looking like an altar of transparent
marble in a gloomy temple. A woman, half- lying on the floor with her head
dropped on her arms, which were crossed on the foot of the cot, woke up as
Almayer strode over her outstretched legs. She sat up without a word, leaning
forward, and, clasping her knees, stared down with sad eyes, full of sleep.
Almayer, the smoky
light in one hand, his pipe in the other, stood before the curtained cot
looking at his daughter--at his little Nina--at that part of himself, at that
small and unconscious particle of humanity that seemed to him to contain all
his soul. And it was as if he had been bathed in a bright and warm wave of
tenderness, in a tenderness greater than the world, more precious than life;
the only thing real, living, sweet, tangible, beautiful and safe amongst the
elusive, the distorted and menacing shadows of existence. On his face, lit up
indistinctly by the short yellow flame of the lamp, came a look of rapt
attention while he looked into her future. And he could see things there!
Things charming and splendid passing before him in a magic unrolling of
resplendent pictures; pictures of events brilliant, happy, inexpressibly
glorious, that would make up her life. He would do it! He would do it. He
would! He would-- for that child! And as he stood in the still night, lost in
his enchanting and gorgeous dreams, while the ascending, thin thread of tobacco
smoke spread into a faint bluish cloud above his head, he appeared strangely
impressive and ecstatic: like a devout and mystic worshipper, adoring,
transported and mute; burning incense before a shrine, a diaphanous shrine of a
child- idol with closed eyes; before a pure and vaporous shrine of a small
god--fragile, powerless, unconscious and sleeping.
When Ali, roused by
loud and repeated shouting of his name, stumbled outside the door of his hut,
he saw a narrow streak of trembling gold above the forests and a pale sky with
faded stars overhead: signs of the coming day. His master stood before the door
waving a piece of paper in his hand and shouting excitedly-- "Quick, Ali!
Quick!" When he saw his servant he rushed forward, and pressing the paper
on him objurgated him, in tones which induced Ali to think that something awful
had happened, to hurry up and get the whale-boat ready to go immediately--at
once, at once--after Captain Lingard. Ali remonstrated, agitated also, having
caught the infection of distracted haste.
"If must go quick,
better canoe. Whale-boat no can catch, same as small canoe."
"No, no!
Whale-boat! whale-boat! You dolt! you wretch!" howled Almayer, with all
the appearance of having gone mad. "Call the men! Get along with it.
Fly!"
And Ali rushed about
the courtyard kicking the doors of huts open to put his head in and yell
frightfully inside; and as he dashed from hovel to hovel, men shivering and
sleepy were coming out, looking after him stupidly, while they scratched their
ribs with bewildered apathy. It was hard work to put them in motion. They
wanted time to stretch themselves and to shiver a little. Some wanted food. One
said he was sick. Nobody knew where the rudder was. Ali darted here and there,
ordering, abusing, pushing one, then another, and stopping in his exertions at
times to wring his hands hastily and groan, because the whale-boat was much
slower than the worst canoe and his master would not listen to his
protestations.
Almayer saw the boat go
off at last, pulled anyhow by men that were cold, hungry, and sulky; and he
remained on the jetty watching it down the reach. It was broad day then, and
the sky was perfectly cloudless. Almayer went up to the house for a moment. His
household was all astir and wondering at the strange disappearance of the
Sirani woman, who had taken her child and had left her luggage. Almayer spoke
to no one, got his revolver, and went down to the river again. He jumped into a
small canoe and paddled himself towards the schooner. He worked very leisurely,
but as soon as he was nearly alongside he began to hail the silent craft with
the tone and appearance of a man in a tremendous hurry.
"Schooner ahoy!
schooner ahoy!" he shouted.
A row of blank faces
popped up above the bulwark. After a while a man with a woolly head of hair
said--
"Sir!"
"The mate! the
mate! Call him, steward!" said Almayer, excitedly, making a frantic grab
at a rope thrown down to him by somebody.
In less than a minute
the mate put his head over. He asked, surprised--
"What can I do for
you, Mr. Almayer?"
"Let me have the
gig at once, Mr. Swan--at once. I ask in Captain Lingard's name. I must have
it. Matter of life and death."
The mate was impressed
by Almayer's agitation
"You shall have
it, sir. . . . Man the gig there! Bear a hand, serang! . . . It's hanging
astern, Mr. Almayer," he said, looking down again. "Get into it, sir.
The men are coming down by the painter."
By the time Almayer had
clambered over into the stern sheets, four calashes were in the boat and the oars
were being passed over the taffrail. The mate was looking on. Suddenly he
said--
"Is it dangerous
work? Do you want any help? I would come . . ."
"Yes, yes!"
cried Almayer. "Come along. Don't lose a moment. Go and get your revolver.
Hurry up! hurry up!"
Yet, notwithstanding
his feverish anxiety to be off, he lolled back very quiet and unconcerned till
the mate got in and, passing over the thwarts, sat down by his side. Then he
seemed to wake up, and called out--
"Let go--let go
the painter!"
"Let go the
painter--the painter!" yelled the bowman, jerking at it.
People on board also
shouted "Let go!" to one another, till it occurred at last to
somebody to cast off the rope; and the boat drifted rapidly away from the
schooner in the sudden silencing of all voices.
Almayer steered. The
mate sat by his side, pushing the cartridges into the chambers of his revolver.
When the weapon was loaded he asked--
"What is it? Are
you after somebody?"
"Yes," said
Almayer, curtly, with his eyes fixed ahead on the river. "We must catch a
dangerous man."
"I like a bit of a
chase myself," declared the mate, and then, discouraged by Almayer's
aspect of severe thoughtfulness, said nothing more.
Nearly an hour passed.
The calashes stretched forward head first and lay back with their faces to the
sky, alternately, in a regular swing that sent the boat flying through the
water; and the two sitters, very upright in the stern sheets, swayed rhythmically
a little at every stroke of the long oars plied vigorously.
The mate observed:
"The tide is with us."
"The current
always runs down in this river," said Almayer.
"Yes--I
know," retorted the other; "but it runs faster on the ebb. Look by
the land at the way we get over the ground! A five-knot current here, I should
say."
"H'm!"
growled Almayer. Then suddenly: "There is a passage between two islands
that will save us four miles. But at low water the two islands, in the dry
season, are like one with only a mud ditch between them. Still, it's worth
trying."
"Ticklish job
that, on a falling tide," said the mate, coolly. "You know best
whether there's time to get through."
"I will try,"
said Almayer, watching the shore intently. "Look out now!"
He tugged hard at the
starboard yoke-line.
"Lay in your
oars!" shouted the mate.
The boat swept round
and shot through the narrow opening of a creek that broadened out before the
craft had time to lose its way.
"Out oars! . . .
Just room enough," muttered the mate.
It was a sombre creek
of black water speckled with the gold of scattered sunlight falling through the
boughs that met overhead in a soaring, restless arc full of gentle whispers
passing, tremulous, aloft amongst the thick leaves. The creepers climbed up the
trunks of serried trees that leaned over, looking insecure and undermined by
floods which had eaten away the earth from under their roots. And the pungent,
acrid smell of rotting leaves, of flowers, of blossoms and plants dying in that
poisonous and cruel gloom, where they pined for sunshine in vain, seemed to lay
heavy, to press upon the shiny and stagnant water in its tortuous windings
amongst the everlasting and invincible shadows.
Almayer looked anxious.
He steered badly. Several times the blades of the oars got foul of the bushes
on one side or the other, checking the way of the gig. During one of those
occurrences, while they were getting clear, one of the calashes said something
to the others in a rapid whisper. They looked down at the water. So did the
mate.
"Hallo!" he
exclaimed. "Eh, Mr. Almayer! Look! The water is running out. See there! We
will be caught."
"Back! back! We
must go back!" cried Almayer.
"Perhaps better go
on."
"No; back!
back!"
He pulled at the
steering line, and ran the nose of the boat into the bank. Time was lost again
in getting clear.
"Give way, men!
give way!" urged the mate, anxiously.
The men pulled with set
lips and dilated nostrils, breathing hard.
"Too late,"
said the mate, suddenly. "The oars touch the bottom already. We are
done."
The boat stuck. The men
laid in the oars, and sat, panting, with crossed arms.
"Yes, we are
caught," said Almayer, composedly. "That is unlucky!"
The water was falling
round the boat. The mate watched the patches of mud coming to the surface. Then
in a moment he laughed, and pointing his finger at the creek--
"Look!" he
said; "the blamed river is running away from us. Here's the last drop of
water clearing out round that bend."
Almayer lifted his head.
The water was gone, and he looked only at a curved track of mud--of mud soft
and black, hiding fever, rottenness, and evil under its level and glazed
surface.
"We are in for it
till the evening," he said, with cheerful resignation. "I did my
best. Couldn't help it."
"We must sleep the
day away," said the mate. "There's nothing to eat," he added,
gloomily.
Almayer stretched
himself in the stern sheets. The Malays curled down between thwarts.
"Well, I'm
jiggered!" said the mate, starting up after a long pause. "I was in a
devil of a hurry to go and pass the day stuck in the mud. Here's a holiday for
you! Well! well!"
They slept or sat
unmoving and patient. As the sun mounted higher the breeze died out, and
perfect stillness reigned in the empty creek. A troop of long-nosed monkeys
appeared, and crowding on the outer boughs, contemplated the boat and the
motionless men in it with grave and sorrowful intensity, disturbed now and then
by irrational outbreaks of mad gesticulation. A little bird with sapphire
breast balanced a slender twig across a slanting beam of light, and flashed in
it to and fro like a gem dropped from the sky. His minute round eye stared at
the strange and tranquil creatures in the boat. After a while he sent out a
thin twitter that sounded impertinent and funny in the solemn silence of the
great wilderness; in the great silence full of struggle and death.
ON LINGARD'S departure
solitude and silence closed round Willems; the cruel solitude of one abandoned
by men; the reproachful silence which surrounds an outcast ejected by his kind,
the silence unbroken by the slightest whisper of hope; an immense and im-
penetrable silence that swallows up without echo the murmur of regret and the
cry of revolt. The bitter peace of the abandoned clearings entered his heart,
in which nothing could live now but the memory and hate of his past. Not
remorse. In the breast of a man possessed by the masterful consciousness of his
individuality with its desires and its rights; by the immovable conviction of
his own importance, of an importance so indisputable and final that it clothes
all his wishes, endeavours, and mistakes with the dignity of unavoidable fate,
there could be no place for such a feeling as that of remorse.
The days passed. They
passed unnoticed, unseen, in the rapid blaze of glaring sunrises, in the short
glow of tender sunsets, in the crushing oppression of high noons without a
cloud. How many days? Two--three--or more? He did not know. To him, since
Lingard had gone, the time seemed to roll on in profound darkness. All was
night within him. All was gone from his sight. He walked about blindly in the
deserted courtyards, amongst the empty houses that, perched high on their
posts, looked down inimically on him, a white stranger, a man from other lands;
seemed to look hostile and mute out of all the memories of native life that
lingered between their decaying walls. His wandering feet stumbled against the
blackened brands of extinct fires, kicking up a light black dust of cold ashes
that flew in drifting clouds and settled to leeward on the fresh grass
sprouting from the hard ground, between the shade trees. He moved on, and on;
ceaseless, unresting, in widening circles, in zigzagging paths that led to no
issue; he struggled on wearily with a set, distressed face behind which, in his
tired brain, seethed his thoughts: restless, sombre, tangled, chilling,
horrible and venomous, like a nestful of snakes.
From afar, the bleared
eyes of the old serving woman, the sombre gaze of Aïssa followed the gaunt and
tottering figure in its unceasing prowl along the fences, between the houses,
amongst the wild luxuriance of riverside thickets. Those three human beings
abandoned by all were like shipwrecked people left on an insecure and slippery
ledge by the retiring tide of an angry sea-- listening to its distant roar,
living anguished between the menace of its return and the hopeless horror of
their solitude--in the midst of a tempest of passion, of regret, of disgust, of
despair. The breath of the storm had cast two of them there, robbed of
everything-- even of resignation. The third, the decrepit witness of their
struggle and their torture, accepted her own dull conception of facts; of
strength and youth gone; of her useless old age; of her last servitude; of
being thrown away by her chief, by her nearest, to use up the last and
worthless remnant of flickering life between those two incomprehensible and
sombre outcasts: a shrivelled, an unmoved, a passive companion of their
disaster.
To the river Willems
turned his eyes like a captive that looks fixedly at the door of his cell. If
there was any hope in the world it would come from the river, by the river. For
hours together he would stand in sunlight while the sea breeze sweeping over
the lonely reach fluttered his ragged garments; the keen salt breeze that made
him shiver now and then under the flood of intense heat. He looked at the brown
and sparkling solitude of the flowing water, of the water flowing ceaseless and
free in a soft, cool murmur of ripples at his feet. The world seemed to end
there. The forests of the other bank appeared unattainable, enigmatical, for
ever beyond reach like the stars of heaven--and as indifferent. Above and
below, the forests on his side of the river came down to the water in a serried
multitude of tall, immense trees towering in a great spread of twisted boughs
above the thick undergrowth; great, solid trees, looking sombre, severe, and
malevolently stolid, like a giant crowd of pitiless enemies pressing round
silently to witness his slow agony. He was alone, small, crushed. He thought of
escape--of something to be done. What? A raft! He imagined himself working at
it, feverishly, desperately; cutting down trees, fastening the logs together
and then drifting down with the current, down to the sea into the straits.
There were ships there--ships, help, white men. Men like himself. Good men who
would rescue him, take him away, take him far away where there was trade, and
houses, and other men that could understand him exactly, appreciate his
capabilities; where there was proper food, and money; where there were beds,
knives, forks, carriages, brass bands, cool drinks, churches with well-dressed
people praying in them. He would pray also. The superior land of refined
delights where he could sit on a chair, eat his tiffin off a white tablecloth,
nod to fellows--good fellows; he would be popular; always was--where he could
be virtuous, correct, do business, draw a salary, smoke cigars, buy things in
shops--have boots . . . be happy, free, become rich. O God! What was wanted?
Cut down a few trees. No! One would do. They used to make canoes by burning out
a tree trunk, he had heard. Yes! One would do. One tree to cut down . . . He
rushed forward, and suddenly stood still as if rooted in the ground. He had a
pocket-knife.
And he would throw
himself down on the ground by the riverside. He was tired, exhausted; as if
that raft had been made, the voyage accomplished, the fortune attained. A glaze
came over his staring eyes, over his eyes that gazed hopelessly at the rising
river where big logs and uprooted trees drifted in the shine of mid-stream: a
long procession of black and ragged specks. He could swim out and drift away on
one of these trees. Anything to escape! Anything! Any risk! He could fasten
himself up between the dead branches. He was torn by desire, by fear; his heart
was wrung by the faltering of his courage. He turned over, face downwards, his
head on his arms. He had a terrible vision of shadowless horizons where the
blue sky and the blue sea met; or a circular and blazing emptiness where a dead
tree and a dead man drifted together, endlessly, up and down, upon the
brilliant undulations of the straits. No ships there. Only death. And the river
led to it.
He sat up with a
profound groan.
Yes, death. Why should
he die? No! Better solitude, better hopeless waiting, alone. Alone. No! he was
not alone, he saw death looking at him from everywhere; from the bushes, from
the clouds--he heard her speaking to him in the murmur of the river, filling
the space, touching his heart, his brain with a cold hand. He could see and
think of nothing else. He saw it--the sure death--everywhere. He saw it so
close that he was always on the point of throwing out his arms to keep it off.
It poisoned all he saw, all he did; the miserable food he ate, the muddy water
he drank; it gave a frightful aspect to sunrises and sunsets, to the brightness
of hot noon, to the cooling shadows of the evenings. He saw the horrible form
among the big trees, in the network of creepers in the fantastic outlines of
leaves, of the great indented leaves that seemed to be so many enormous hands
with big broad palms, with stiff fingers outspread to lay hold of him; hands
gently stirring, or hands arrested in a frightful immobility, with a stillness
attentive and watching for the opportunity to take him, to enlace him, to
strangle him, to hold him till he died; hands that would hold him dead, that
would never let go, that would cling to his body for ever till it
perished--disappeared in their frantic and tenacious grasp.
And yet the world was
full of life. All the things, all the men he knew, existed, moved, breathed;
and he saw them in a long perspective, far off, diminished, distinct,
desirable, unattainable, precious . . . lost for ever. Round him, ceaselessly,
there went on without a sound the mad turmoil of tropical life. After he had
died all this would remain! He wanted to clasp, to embrace solid things; he had
an immense craving for sensations; for touching, pressing, seeing, handling,
holding on, to all these things. All this would remain--remain for years, for
ages, for ever. After he had miserably died there, all this would remain, would
live, would exist in joyous sunlight, would breathe in the coolness of serene
nights. What for, then? He would be dead. He would be stretched upon the warm
moisture of the ground, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, knowing nothing; he
would lie stiff, passive, rotting slowly; while over him, under him, through
him--unopposed, busy, hurried--the endless and minute throngs of insects,
little shining monsters of repulsive shapes, with horns, with claws, with
pincers, would swarm in streams, in rushes, in eager struggle for his body;
would swarm countless, persistent, ferocious and greedy--till there would
remain nothing but the white gleam of bleaching bones in the long grass; in the
long grass that would shoot its feathery heads between the bare and polished
ribs. There would be that only left of him; nobody would miss him; no one would
remember him.
Nonsense! It could not
be. There were ways out of this. Somebody would turn up. Some human beings
would come. He would speak, entreat--use force to extort help from them. He
felt strong; he was very strong. He would . . . The discouragement, the
conviction of the futility of his hopes would return in an acute sensation of
pain in his heart. He would begin again his aimless wanderings. He tramped till
he was ready to drop, without being able to calm by bodily fatigue the trouble
of his soul. There was no rest, no peace within the cleared grounds of his
prison. There was no relief but in the black release of sleep, of sleep without
memory and without dreams; in the sleep coming brutal and heavy, like the lead
that kills. To forget in annihilating sleep; to tumble headlong, as if stunned,
out of daylight into the night of oblivion, was for him the only, the rare
respite from this existence which he lacked the courage to endure--or to end.
He lived, he struggled
with the inarticulate delirium of his thoughts under the eyes of the silent Aïssa.
She shared his torment in the poignant wonder, in the acute longing, in the
despairing inability to understand the cause of his anger and of his repulsion;
the hate of his looks; the mystery of his silence; the menace of his rare
words--of those words in the speech of white people that were thrown at her
with rage, with contempt, with the evident desire to hurt her; to hurt her who
had given herself, her life--all she had to give--to that white man; to hurt
her who had wanted to show him the way to true greatness, who had tried to help
him, in her woman's dream of everlasting, enduring, unchangeable affection.
From the short contact with the whites in the crashing collapse of her old
life, there remained with her the imposing idea of irresistible power and of
ruthless strength. She had found a man of their race--and with all their
qualities. All whites are alike. But this man's heart was full of anger against
his own people, full of anger existing there by the side of his desire of her.
And to her it had been an intoxication of hope for great things born in the
proud and tender consciousness of her influence. She had heard the passing whisper
of wonder and fear in the presence of his hesitation, of his resistance, of his
compromises; and yet with a woman's belief in the durable steadfastness of
hearts, in the irresistible charm of her own personality, she had pushed him
forward, trusting the future, blindly, hopefully; sure to attain by his side
the ardent desire of her life, if she could only push him far beyond the
possibility of retreat. She did not know, and could not conceive, anything of
his--so exalted-- ideals. She thought the man a warrior and a chief, ready for
battle, violence, and treachery to his own people--for her. What more natural?
Was he not a great, strong man? Those two, surrounded each by the impenetrable
wall of their aspirations, were hopelessly alone, out of sight, out of earshot
of each other; each the centre of dissimilar and distant horizons; standing
each on a different earth, under a different sky. She remembered his words, his
eyes, his trembling lips, his outstretched hands; she remembered the great, the
immeasurable sweetness of her surrender, that beginning of her power which was
to last until death. He remembered the quaysides and the warehouses; the
excitement of a life in a whirl of silver coins; the glorious uncertainty of a
money hunt; his numerous successes, the lost possibilities of wealth and
consequent glory. She, a woman, was the victim of her heart, of her woman's
belief that there is nothing in the world but love--the everlasting thing. He
was the victim of his strange principles, of his continence, of his blind
belief in himself, of his solemn veneration for the voice of his boundless
ignorance.
In a moment of his
idleness, of suspense, of discouragement, she had come--that creature--and by
the touch of her hand had destroyed his future, his dignity of a clever and
civilized man; had awakened in his breast the infamous thing which had driven
him to what he had done, and to end miserably in the wilderness and be
forgotten, or else remembered with hate or contempt. He dared not look at her,
because now whenever he looked at her his thought seemed to touch crime, like
an outstretched hand. She could only look at him--and at nothing else. What
else was there? She followed him with a timorous gaze, with a gaze for ever
expecting, patient, and entreating. And in her eyes there was the wonder and
desolation of an animal that knows only suffering, of the incomplete soul that
knows pain but knows not hope; that can find no refuge from the facts of life
in the illusory conviction of its dignity, of an exalted destiny beyond; in the
heavenly consolation of a belief in the momentous origin of its hate.
For the first three
days after Lingard went away he would not even speak to her. She preferred his
silence to the sound of hated and incomprehensible words he had been lately
addressing to her with a wild violence of manner, passing at once into complete
apathy. And during these three days he hardly ever left the river, as if on
that muddy bank he had felt himself nearer to his freedom. He would stay late;
he would stay till sunset; he would look at the glow of gold passing away
amongst sombre clouds in a bright red flush, like a splash of warm blood. It
seemed to him ominous and ghastly with a foreboding of violent death that
beckoned him from everywhere --even from the sky.
One evening he remained
by the riverside long after sunset, regardless of the night mist that had
closed round him, had wrapped him up and clung to him like a wet winding-sheet.
A slight shiver recalled him to his senses, and he walked up the courtyard
towards his house. Aïssa rose from before the fire, that glimmered red through
its own smoke, which hung thickening under the boughs of the big tree. She
approached him from the side as he neared the plankway of the house. He saw her
stop to let him begin his ascent. In the darkness her figure was like the
shadow of a woman with clasped hands put out beseechingly. He stopped--could
not help glancing at her. In all the sombre gracefulness of the straight
figure, her limbs, features--all was indistinct and vague but the gleam of her
eyes in the faint starlight. He turned his head away and moved on. He could
feel her footsteps behind him on the bending planks, but he walked up without
turning his head. He knew what she wanted. She wanted to come in there. He
shuddered at the thought of what might happen in the impenetrable darkness of
that house if they were to find themselves alone--even for a moment. He stopped
in the doorway, and heard her say--
"Let me come in.
Why this anger? Why this silence? . . . Let me watch . . by your side. . . .
Have I not watched faithfully? Did harm ever come to you when you closed your
eyes while I was by? . . . I have waited . . . I have waited for your smile,
for your words . . . I can wait no more. . . . Look at me . . . speak to me. Is
there a bad spirit in you? A bad spirit that has eaten up your courage and your
love? Let me touch you. Forget all . . . All. Forget the wicked hearts, the
angry faces . . . and remember only the day I came to you . . . to you! O my heart!
O my life!"
The pleading sadness of
her appeal filled the space with the tremor of her low tones, that carried
tenderness and tears into the great peace of the sleeping world. All around
them the forests, the clearings, the river, covered by the silent veil of
night, seemed to wake up and listen to her words in attentive stillness. After
the sound of her voice had died out in a stifled sigh they appeared to listen
yet; and nothing stirred among the shapeless shadows but the innumerable
fireflies that twinkled in changing clusters, in gliding pairs, in wandering
and solitary points--like the glimmering drift of scattered star-dust.
Willems turned round
slowly, reluctantly, as if compelled by main force. Her face was hidden in her
hands, and he looked above her bent head, into the sombre brilliance of the
night. It was one of those nights that give the impression of extreme vastness,
when the sky seems higher, when the passing puffs of tepid breeze seem to bring
with them faint whispers from beyond the stars. The air was full of sweet
scent, of the scent charming, penetrating. and violent like the impulse of
love. He looked into that great dark place odorous with the breath of life,
with the mystery of existence, renewed, fecund, indestructible; and he felt
afraid of his solitude, of the solitude of his body, of the loneliness of his
soul in the presence of this unconscious and ardent struggle, of this lofty
indifference, of this merciless and mysterious purpose, perpetuating strife and
death through the march of ages. For the second time in his life he felt, in a
sudden sense of his significance, the need to send a cry for help into the
wilderness, and for the second time he realized the hopelessness of its
unconcern. He could shout for help on every side--and nobody would answer. He
could stretch out his hands, he could call for aid, for support, for sympathy,
for relief --and nobody would come. Nobody. There was no one there--but that
woman.
His heart was moved,
softened with pity at his own abandonment. His anger against her, against her
who was the cause of all his misfortunes, vanished before his extreme need for
some kind of consolation. Perhaps--if he must resign himself to his fate--she
might help him to forget. To forget! For a moment, in an access of despair so
profound that it seemed like the beginning of peace, he planned the deliberate
descent from his pedestal, the throwing away of his superiority, of all his
hopes, of old ambitions, of the ungrateful civilization. For a moment,
forgetfulness in her arms seemed possible; and lured by that possibility the
semblance of renewed desire possessed his breast in a burst of reckless
contempt for everything outside himself--in a savage disdain of Earth and of
Heaven. He said to himself that he would not repent. The punishment for his
only sin was too heavy. There was no mercy under Heaven. He did not want any.
He thought, desperately, that if he could find with her again the madness of
the past, the strange delirium that had changed him, that had worked his
undoing, he would be ready to pay for it with an eternity of perdition. He was
intoxicated by the subtle perfumes of the night; he was carried away by the
suggestive stir of the warm breeze; he was possessed by the exaltation of the
solitude, of the silence, of his memories, in the presence of that figure
offering herself in a submissive and patient devotion; coming to him in the
name of the past, in the name of those days when he could see nothing, think of
nothing, desire nothing--but her embrace.
He took her suddenly in
his arms, and she clasped her hands round his neck with a low cry of joy and
surprise. He took her in his arms and waited for the transport, for the
madness, for the sensations remembered and lost; and while she sobbed gently on
his breast he held her and felt cold, sick, tired, exasperated with his
failure--and ended by cursing himself. She clung to him trembling with the
intensity of her happiness and her love. He heard her whispering--her face
hidden on his shoulder--of past sorrow, of coming joy that would last for ever;
of her unshaken belief in his love. She had always believed. Always! Even while
his face was turned away from her in the dark days while his mind was wandering
in his own land, amongst his own people. But it would never wander away from
her any more, now it had come back. He would forget the cold faces and the hard
hearts of the cruel people. What was there to remember? Nothing? Was it not so?
. . .
He listened hopelessly
to the faint murmur. He stood still and rigid, pressing her mechanically to his
breast while he thought that there was nothing for him in the world. He was
robbed of everything; robbed of his passion, of his liberty, of forgetfulness,
of consolation. She, wild with delight, whispered on rapidly, of love, of
light, of peace, of long years. . . . He looked drearily above her head down
into the deeper gloom of the courtyard. And, all at once, it seemed to him that
he was peering into a sombre hollow, into a deep black hole full of decay and
of whitened bones; into an immense and inevitable grave full of corruption
where sooner or later he must, unavoidably, fall.
In the morning he came
out early, and stood for a time in the doorway, listening to the light
breathing behind him--in the house. She slept. He had not closed his eyes
through all that night. He stood swaying--then leaned against the lintel of the
door. He was exhausted, done up; fancied himself hardly alive. He had a
disgusted horror of himself that, as he looked at the level sea of mist at his
feet, faded quickly into dull indifference. It was like a sudden and final
decrepitude of his senses, of his body, of his thoughts. Standing on the high
platform, he looked over the expanse of low night fog above which, here and
there, stood out the feathery heads of tall bamboo clumps and the round tops of
single trees, resembling small islets emerging black and solid from a ghostly
and impalpable sea. Upon the faintly luminous background of the eastern sky,
the sombre line of the great forests bounded that smooth sea of white vapours
with an appearance of a fantastic and unattainable shore. He looked without
seeing anything--thinking of himself. Before his eyes the light of the rising
sun burst above the forest with the suddenness of an explosion. He saw nothing.
Then, after a time, he murmured with conviction--speaking half aloud to himself
in the shock of the penetrating thought:
"I am a lost
man."
He shook his hand above
his head in a gesture careless and tragic, then walked down into the mist that
closed above him in shining undulations under the first breath of the morning
breeze.
WILLEMS moved languidly
towards the river, then retraced his steps to the tree and let himself fall on
the seat under its shade. On the other side of the immense trunk he could hear
the old woman moving about, sighing loudly, muttering to herself, snapping dry
sticks, blowing up the fire. After a while a whiff of smoke drifted round to
where he sat. It made him feel hungry, and that feeling was like a new
indignity added to an intolerable load of humiliations. He felt inclined to
cry. He felt very weak. He held up his arm before his eyes and watched for a
little while the trembling of the lean limb. Skin and bone, by God! How thin he
was! . . . He had suffered from fever a good deal, and now he thought with
tearful dismay that Lingard, although he had sent him food--and what food,
great Lord: a little rice and dried fish; quite unfit for a white man--had not
sent him any medicine. Did the old savage think that he was like the wild
beasts that are never ill? He wanted quinine.
He leaned the back of
his head against the tree and closed his eyes. He thought feebly that if he
could get hold of Lingard he would like to flay him alive; but it was only a
blurred, a short and a passing thought. His imagination, exhausted by the
repeated delineations of his own fate, had not enough strength left to grip the
idea of revenge. He was not indignant and rebellious. He was cowed. He was
cowed by the immense cataclysm of his disaster. Like most men, he had carried
solemnly within his breast the whole universe, and the approaching end of all
things in the destruction of his own personality filled him with paralyzing
awe. Everything was toppling over. He blinked his eyes quickly, and it seemed
to him that the very sunshine of the morning disclosed in its brightness a
suggestion of some hidden and sinister meaning. In his unreasoning fear he
tried to hide within himself. He drew his feet up, his head sank between his
shoulders, his arms hugged his sides. Under the high and enormous tree soaring
superbly out of the mist in a vigorous spread of lofty boughs, with a restless
and eager flutter of its innumerable leaves in the clear sunshine, he remained
motionless, huddled up on his seat: terrified and still.
Willems' gaze roamed
over the ground, and then he watched with idiotic fixity half a dozen black
ants entering courageously a tuft of long grass which, to them, must have
appeared a dark and a dangerous jungle. Suddenly he thought: There must be
something dead in there. Some dead insect. Death everywhere! He closed his eyes
again in an access of trembling pain. Death everywhere--wherever one looks. He
did not want to see the ants. He did not want to see anybody or anything. He
sat in the darkness of his own making, reflecting bitterly that there was no
peace for him. He heard voices now. . . . Illusion! Misery! Torment! Who would
come? Who would speak to him? What business had he to hear voices? . . . yet he
heard them faintly, from the river. Faintly, as if shouted far off over there,
came the words "We come back soon." . . . Delirium and mockery! Who
would come back? Nobody ever comes back! Fever comes back. He had it on him
this morning. That was it. . . . He heard unexpectedly the old woman muttering
something near by. She had come round to his side of the tree. He opened his eyes
and saw her bent back before him. She stood, with her hand shading her eyes,
looking towards the landing-place. Then she glided away. She had seen --and now
she was going back to her cooking; a woman incurious; expecting nothing;
without fear and without hope.
She had gone back
behind the tree, and now Willems could see a human figure on the path to the
landing- place. It appeared to him to be a woman, in a red gown, holding some
heavy bundle in her arms; it was an apparition unexpected, familiar and odd. He
cursed through his teeth . . . It had wanted only this! See things like that in
broad daylight! He was very bad--very bad. . . . He was horribly scared at this
awful symptom of the desperate state of his health.
This scare lasted for
the space of a flash of lightning, and in the next moment it was revealed to
him that the woman was real; that she was coming towards him; that she was his
wife! He put his feet down to the ground quickly, but made no other movement.
His eyes opened wide. He was so amazed that for a time he absolutely forgot his
own existence. The only idea in his head was: Why on earth did she come here?
Joanna was coming up
the courtyard with eager, hurried steps. She carried in her arms the child,
wrapped up in one of Almayer's white blankets that she had snatched off the bed
at the last moment, before leaving the house. She seemed to be dazed by the sun
in her eyes; bewildered by her strange surroundings. She moved on, looking
quickly right and left in impatient expectation of seeing her husband at any
moment. Then, approaching the tree, she perceived suddenly a kind of a
dried-up, yellow corpse, sitting very stiff on a bench in the shade and looking
at her with big eyes that were alive. That was her husband.
She stopped dead short.
They stared at one another in profound stillness, with astounded eyes, with
eyes maddened by the memories of things far off that seemed lost in the lapse
of time. Their looks crossed, passed each other, and appeared to dart at them
through fantastic distances, to come straight from the incredible.
Looking at him steadily
she came nearer, and deposited the blanket with the child in it on the bench.
Little Louis, after howling with terror in the darkness of the river most of
the night, now slept soundly and did not wake. Willems' eyes followed his wife,
his head turning slowly after her. He accepted her presence there with a tired
acquiescence in its fabulous improbability. Anything might happen. What did she
come for? She was part of the general scheme of his misfortune. He half
expected that she would rush at him, pull his hair, and scratch his face. Why
not? Anything might happen! In an exaggerated sense of his great bodily
weakness he felt somewhat apprehensive of possible assault. At any rate, she would
scream at him. He knew her of old. She could screech. He had thought that he
was rid of her for ever. She came now probably to see the end. . . .
Suddenly she turned,
and embracing him slid gently to the ground. This startled him. With her
forehead on his knees she sobbed noiselessly. He looked down dismally at the
top of her head. What was she up to? He had not the strength to move--to get
away. He heard her whispering something, and bent over to listen. He caught the
word "Forgive."
That was what she came
for! All that way. Women are queer. Forgive. Not he! . . . All at once this
thought darted through his brain: How did she come? In a boat. Boat! boat!
He shouted
"Boat!" and jumped up, knocking her over. Before she had time to pick
herself up he pounced upon her and was dragging her up by the shoulders. No
sooner had she regained her feet than she clasped him tightly round the neck,
covering his face, his eyes, his mouth, his nose with desperate kisses. He
dodged his head about, shaking her arms, trying to keep her off, to speak, to
ask her. . . . She came in a boat, boat, boat! . . . They struggled and swung
round, tramping in a semicircle. He blurted out, "Leave off. Listen,"
while he tore at her hands. This meeting of lawful love and sincere joy
resembled fight. Louis Willems slept peacefully under his blanket.
At last Willems managed
to free himself, and held her off, pressing her arms down. He looked at her. He
had half a suspicion that he was dreaming. Her lips trembled; her eyes wandered
unsteadily, always coming back to his face. He saw her the same as ever, in his
presence. She appeared startled, tremulous, ready to cry. She did not inspire
him with confidence. He shouted--
"How did you
come?"
She answered in hurried
words, looking at him intently--
"In a big canoe
with three men. I know everything. Lingard's away. I come to save you. I know.
. . . Almayer told me."
"Canoe!--Almayer--Lies.
Told you--You!" stammered Willems in a distracted manner. "Why you?--
Told what?"
Words failed him. He
stared at his wife, thinking with fear that she--stupid woman--had been made a
tool in some plan of treachery . . . in some deadly plot.
She began to cry--
"Don't look at me
like that, Peter. What have I done? I come to beg--to beg--forgiveness. . . .
Save--Lingard--danger."
He trembled with
impatience, with hope, with fear. She looked at him and sobbed out in a fresh
outburst of grief--
"Oh! Peter. What's
the matter?--Are you ill? . . . Oh! you look so ill . . ."
He shook her violently
into a terrified and wondering silence.
"How dare you!--I
am well--perfectly well. . . . Where's that boat? Will you tell me where that
boat is--at last? The boat, I say . . . You! . . ."
"You hurt
me," she moaned.
He let her go, and,
mastering her terror, she stood quivering and looking at him with strange
intensity. Then she made a movement forward, but he lifted his finger, and she
restrained herself with a long sigh. He calmed down suddenly and surveyed her
with cold criticism, with the same appearance as when, in the old days, he used
to find fault with the household expenses. She found a kind of fearful delight
in this abrupt return into the past, into her old subjection.
He stood outwardly
collected now, and listened to her disconnected story. Her words seemed to fall
round him with the distracting clatter of stunning hail. He caught the meaning
here and there, and straightway would lose himself in a tremendous effort to
shape out some intelligible theory of events. There was a boat. A boat. A big
boat that could take him to sea if necessary. That much was clear. She brought
it. Why did Almayer lie to her so? Was it a plan to decoy him into some ambush?
Better that than hopeless solitude. She had money. The men were ready to go
anywhere . . . she said.
He interrupted her--
"Where are they
now?"
"They are coming
directly," she answered, tearfully. "Directly. There are some fishing
stakes near here --they said. They are coming directly."
Again she was talking
and sobbing together. She wanted to be forgiven. Forgiven? What for? Ah! the
scene in Macassar. As if he had time to think of that! What did he care what
she had done months ago? He seemed to struggle in the toils of complicated
dreams where everything was impossible, yet a matter of course, where the past
took the aspects of the future and the present lay heavy on his heart-- seemed
to take him by the throat like the hand of an enemy. And while she begged,
entreated, kissed his hands, wept on his shoulder, adjured him in the name of
God, to forgive, to forget, to speak the word for which she longed, to look at
his boy, to believe in her sorrow and in her devotion--his eyes, in the
fascinated immobility of shining pupils, looked far away, far beyond her,
beyond the river, beyond this land, through days, weeks, months; looked into
liberty, into the future, into his triumph . . . into the great possibility of
a startling revenge.
He felt a sudden desire
to dance and shout. He shouted--
"After all, we
shall meet again, Captain Lingard."
"Oh, no! No!"
she cried, joining her hands.
He looked at her with
surprise. He had forgotten she was there till the break of her cry in the
monotonous tones of her prayer recalled him into that courtyard from the
glorious turmoil of his dreams. It was very strange to see her there--near him.
He felt almost affectionate towards her. After all, she came just in time. Then
he thought: That other one. I must get away without a scene. Who knows; she may
be dangerous! . . . And all at once he felt he hated Aïssa with an immense
hatred that seemed to choke him. He said to his wife--
"Wait a
moment."
She, obedient, seemed
to gulp down some words which wanted to come out. He muttered: "Stay
here," and disappeared round the tree.
The water in the iron
pan on the cooking fire boiled furiously, belching out volumes of white steam
that mixed with the thin black thread of smoke. The old woman appeared to him
through this as if in a fog, squatting on her heels, impassive and weird.
Willems came up near
and asked, "Where is she?"
The woman did not even
lift her head, but answered at once, readily, as though she had expected the
question for a long time.
"While you were
asleep under the tree, before the strange canoe came, she went out of the house.
I saw her look at you and pass on with a great light in her eyes. A great
light. And she went towards the place where our master Lakamba had his fruit
trees. When we were many here. Many, many. Men with arms by their side. Many .
. . men. And talk . . . and songs . . . "
She went on like that,
raving gently to herself for a long time after Willems had left her.
Willems went back to
his wife. He came up close to her and found he had nothing to say. Now all his
faculties were concentrated upon his wish to avoid Aïssa. She might stay all
the morning in that grove. Why did those rascally boatmen go? He had a physical
repugnance to set eyes on her. And somewhere, at the very bottom of his heart,
there was a fear of her. Why? What could she do? Nothing on earth could stop
him now. He felt strong, reckless, pitiless, and superior to everything. He
wanted to preserve before his wife the lofty purity of his character. He
thought: She does not know. Almayer held his tongue about Aïssa. But if she
finds out, I am lost. If it hadn't been for the boy I would . . . free of both
of them. . . . The idea darted through his head. Not he! Married. . . . Swore
solemnly. No . . . sacred tie. . . . Looking on his wife, he felt for the first
time in his life something approaching remorse. Remorse, arising from his
conception of the awful nature of an oath before the altar. . . . She mustn't
find out. . . . Oh, for that boat! He must run in and get his revolver.
Couldn't think of trusting himself unarmed with those Bajow fellows. Get it now
while she is away. Oh, for that boat! . . . He dared not go to the river and
hail. He thought: She might hear me. . . . I'll go and get . . . cartridges . .
. then will be all ready . . . nothing else. No.
And while he stood
meditating profoundly before he could make up his mind to run to the house,
Joanna pleaded, holding to his arm--pleaded despairingly, broken-hearted,
hopeless whenever she glanced up at his face, which to her seemed to wear the
aspect of unforgiving rectitude, of virtuous severity, of merciless justice.
And she pleaded humbly--abashed before him, before the unmoved appearance of
the man she had wronged in defiance of human and divine laws. He heard not a
word of what she said till she raised her voice in a final appeal--
". . . Don't you
see I loved you always? They told me horrible things about you. . . . My own
mother! They told me--you have been--you have been unfaithful to me, and I . .
."
"It's a damned
lie!" shouted Willems, waking up for a moment into righteous indignation.
"I know! I
know--Be generous.--Think of my misery since you went away--Oh! I could have
torn my tongue out. . . . I will never believe anybody--Look at the boy--Be
merciful--I could never rest till I found you. . . . Say--a word--one word. .
."
"What the devil do
you want?" exclaimed Willems, looking towards the river. "Where's
that damned boat? Why did you let them go away? You stupid!"
"Oh, Peter!--I
know that in your heart you have forgiven me--You are so generous--I want to
hear you say so. . . . Tell me--do you?"
"Yes! yes!"
said Willems, impatiently. "I forgive you. Don't be a fool."
"Don't go away.
Don't leave me alone here. Where is the danger? I am so frightened. . . . Are
you alone here? Sure? . . . Let us go away!"
"That's
sense," said Willems, still looking anxiously towards the river.
She sobbed gently,
leaning on his arm.
"Let me go,"
he said.
He had seen above the
steep bank the heads of three men glide along smoothly. Then, where the shore
shelved down to the landing-place, appeared a big canoe which came slowly to
land.
"Here they
are," he went on, briskly. "I must get my revolver."
He made a few hurried
paces towards the house, but seemed to catch sight of something, turned short
round and came back to his wife. She stared at him, alarmed by the sudden
change in his face. He appeared much discomposed. He stammered a little as he
began to speak.
"Take the child.
Walk down to the boat and tell them to drop it out of sight, quick, behind the
bushes. Do you hear? Quick! I will come to you there directly. Hurry up!"
"Peter! What is
it? I won't leave you. There is some danger in this horrible place."
"Will you do what
I tell you?" said Willems, in an irritable whisper.
"No! no! no! I
won't leave you. I will not lose you again. Tell me, what is it?"
From beyond the house
came a faint voice singing. Willems shook his wife by the shoulder.
"Do what I tell
you! Run at once!"
She gripped his arm and
clung to him desperately. He looked up to heaven as if taking it to witness of
that woman's infernal folly. The song grew louder, then ceased suddenly, and Aïssa
appeared in sight, walking slowly, her hands full of flowers.
She had turned the
corner of the house, coming out into the full sunshine, and the light seemed to
leap upon her in a stream brilliant, tender, and caressing, as if attracted by
the radiant happiness of her face. She had dressed herself for a festive day,
for the memorable day of his return to her, of his return to an affection that
would last for ever. The rays of the morning sun were caught by the oval clasp
of the embroidered belt that held the silk sarong round her waist. The dazzling
white stuff of her body jacket was crossed by a bar of yellow and silver of her
scarf, and in the black hair twisted high on her small head shone the round
balls of gold pins amongst crimson blossoms and white star-shaped flowers, with
which she had crowned herself to charm his eyes; those eyes that were
henceforth to see nothing in the world but her own resplendent image. And she
moved slowly, bending her face over the mass of pure white champakas and
jasmine pressed to her breast, in a dreamy intoxication of sweet scents and of
sweeter hopes.
She did not seem to see
anything, stopped for a moment at the foot of the plankway leading to the
house, then, leaving her high-heeled wooden sandals there, ascended the planks
in a light run; straight, graceful, flexible, and noiseless, as if she had
soared up to the door on invisible wings. Willems pushed his wife roughly
behind the tree, and made up his mind quickly for a rush to the house, to grab
his revolver and . . . Thoughts, doubts, expedients seemed to boil in his
brain. He had a flashing vision of delivering a stunning blow, of tying up that
flower bedecked woman in the dark house--a vision of things done swiftly with
enraged haste--to save his prestige, his superiority--something of immense
importance. . . . He had not made two steps when Joanna bounded after him,
caught the back of his ragged jacket, tore out a big piece, and instantly
hooked herself with both hands to the collar, nearly dragging him down on his
back. Although taken by surprise, he managed to keep his feet. From behind she
panted into his ear--
"That woman! Who's
that woman? Ah! that's what those boatmen were talking about. I heard them . .
. heard them . . . heard . . . in the night. They spoke about some woman. I
dared not understand. I would not ask . . . listen . . . believe! How could I?
Then it's true. No. Say no. . . . Who's that woman?"
He swayed, tugging
forward. She jerked at him till the button gave way, and then he slipped half
out of his jacket and, turning round, remained strangely motionless. His heart
seemed to beat in his throat. He choked--tried to speak--could not find any
words. He thought with fury: I will kill both of them.
For a second nothing
moved about the courtyard in the great vivid clearness of the day. Only down by
the landing-place a waringan-tree, all in a blaze of clustering red berries,
seemed alive with the stir of little birds that filled with the feverish
flutter of their feathers the tangle of overloaded branches. Suddenly the
variegated flock rose spinning in a soft whirr and dispersed, slashing the
sunlit haze with the sharp outlines of stiffened wings. Mahmat and one of his
brothers appeared coming up from the landing-place, their lances in their
hands, to look for their passengers.
Aïssa coming now
empty-handed out of the house, caught sight of the two armed men. In her
surprise she emitted a faint cry, vanished back and in a flash reappeared in
the doorway with Willems' revolver in her hand. To her the presence of any man
there could only have an ominous meaning. There was nothing in the outer world
but enemies. She and the man she loved were alone, with nothing round them but
menacing dangers. She did not mind that, for if death came, no matter from what
hand, they would die together.
Her resolute eyes took
in the courtyard in a circular glance. She noticed that the two strangers had
ceased to advance and now were standing close together leaning on the polished
shafts of their weapons. The next moment she saw Willems, with his back towards
her, apparently struggling under the tree with some one. She saw nothing
distinctly, and, unhesitating, flew down the plankway calling out: "I
come!"
He heard her cry, and
with an unexpected rush drove his wife backwards to the seat. She fell on it; he
jerked himself altogether out of his jacket, and she covered her face with the
soiled rags. He put his lips close to her, asking--
"For the last
time, will you take the child and go?"
She groaned behind the
unclean ruins of his upper garment. She mumbled something. He bent lower to
hear. She was saying--
"I won't. Order
that woman away. I can't look at her!"
"You fool!"
He seemed to spit the
words at her, then, making up his mind, spun round to face Aïssa. She was
coming towards them slowly now, with a look of unbounded amazement on her face.
Then she stopped and stared at him--who stood there, stripped to the waist,
bareheaded and sombre.
Some way off, Mahmat
and his brother exchanged rapid words in calm undertones. . . . This was the
strong daughter of the holy man who had died. The white man is very tall. There
would be three women and the child to take in the boat, besides that white man
who had the money. . . . The brother went away back to the boat, and Mahmat
remained looking on. He stood like a sentinel, the leaf-shaped blade of his
lance glinting above his head.
Willems spoke suddenly.
"Give me
this," he said, stretching his hand towards the revolver.
Aïssa stepped back. Her
lips trembled. She said very low: "Your people?"
He nodded slightly. She
shook her head thoughtfully, and a few delicate petals of the flowers dying in
her hair fell like big drops of crimson and white at her feet.
"Did you
know?" she whispered.
"No!" said
Willems. "They sent for me."
"Tell them to
depart. They are accursed. What is there between them and you--and you who
carry my life in your heart!"
Willems said nothing.
He stood before her looking down on the ground and repeating to himself: I must
get that revolver away from her, at once, at once. I can't think of trusting
myself with those men without firearms. I must have it.
She asked, after gazing
in silence at Joanna, who was sobbing gently--
"Who is she?"
"My wife,"
answered Willems, without looking up. "My wife according to our white law,
which comes from God!"
"Your law! Your
God!" murmured Aïssa, contemptuously.
"Give me this
revolver," said Willems, in a peremptory tone. He felt an unwillingness to
close with her, to get it by force.
She took no notice and
went on--
"Your law . . . or
your lies? What am I to believe? I came--I ran to defend you when I saw the
strange men. You lied to me with your lips, with your eyes. You crooked heart!
. . . Ah!" she added, after an abrupt pause. "She is the first! Am I
then to be a slave?"
"You may be what
you like," said Willems, brutally. "I am going."
Her gaze was fastened
on the blanket under which she had detected a slight movement. She made a long
stride towards it. Willems turned half round. His legs seemed to him to be made
of lead. He felt faint and so weak that, for a moment, the fear of dying there
where he stood, before he could escape from sin and disaster, passed through
his mind in a wave of despair.
She lifted up one
corner of the blanket, and when she saw the sleeping child a sudden quick
shudder shook her as though she had seen something inexpressibly horrible. She
looked at Louis Willems with eyes fixed in an unbelieving and terrified stare.
Then her fingers opened slowly, and a shadow seemed to settle on her face as if
something obscure and fatal had come between her and the sunshine. She stood
looking down, absorbed, as though she had watched at the bottom of a gloomy
abyss the mournful procession of her thoughts.
Willems did not move.
All his faculties were concentrated upon the idea of his release. And it was
only then that the assurance of it came to him with such force that he seemed
to hear a loud voice shouting in the heavens that all was over, that in another
five, ten minutes, he would step into another existence; that all this, the
woman, the madness, the sin, the regrets, all would go, rush into the past,
disappear, become as dust, as smoke, as drifting clouds--as nothing! Yes! All
would vanish in the unappeasable past which would swallow up all--even the very
memory of his temptation and of his downfall. Nothing mattered. He cared for
nothing. He had forgotten Aïssa, his wife, Lingard, Hudig--everybody, in the
rapid vision of his hopeful future.
After a while he heard
Aïssa saying--
"A child! A child!
What have I done to be made to devour this sorrow and this grief? And while
your man-child and the mother lived you told me there was nothing for you to
remember in the land from which you came! And I thought you could be mine. I
thought that I would . . ."
Her voice ceased in a
broken murmur, and with it, in her heart, seemed to die the greater and most
precious hope of her new life. She had hoped that in the future the frail arms
of a child would bind their two lives together in a bond which nothing on earth
could break, a bond of affection, of gratitude, of tender respect. She the
first--the only one! But in the instant she saw the son of that other woman she
felt herself removed into the cold, the darkness, the silence of a solitude
impenetrable and immense--very far from him, beyond the possibility of any
hope, into an infinity of wrongs without any redress.
She strode nearer to
Joanna. She felt towards that woman anger, envy, jealousy. Before her she felt
humiliated and enraged. She seized the hanging sleeve of the jacket in which
Joanna was hiding her face and tore it out of her hands, exclaiming loudly--
"Let me see the
face of her before whom I am only a servant and a slave. Ya-wa! I see
you!"
Her unexpected shout
seemed to fill the sunlit space of cleared grounds, rise high and run on far
into the land over the unstirring tree-tops of the forests. She stood in sudden
stillness, looking at Joanna with surprised contempt.
"A Sirani
woman!" she said, slowly, in a tone of wonder.
Joanna rushed at
Willems--clung to him, shrieking: "Defend me, Peter! Defend me from that
woman!"
"Be quiet. There
is no danger," muttered Willems, thickly.
Aïssa looked at them
with scorn. "God is great! I sit in the dust at your feet," she
exclaimed jeeringly, joining her hands above her head in a gesture of mock
humility. "Before you I am as nothing." She turned to Willems
fiercely, opening her arms wide. "What have you made of me?" she
cried, "you lying child of an accursed mother! What have you made of me?
The slave of a slave. Don't speak! Your words are worse than the poison of
snakes. A Sirani woman. A woman of a people despised by all."
She pointed her finger
at Joanna, stepped back, and began to laugh.
"Make her stop,
Peter!" screamed Joanna. "That heathen woman. Heathen! Heathen! Beat
her, Peter."
Willems caught sight of
the revolver which Aïssa had laid on the seat near the child. He spoke in Dutch
to his wife, without moving his head.
"Snatch the
boy--and my revolver there. See. Run to the boat. I will keep her back. Now's
the time."
Aïssa came nearer. She
stared at Joanna, while between the short gusts of broken laughter she raved,
fumbling distractedly at the buckle of her belt.
"To her! To
her--the mother of him who will speak of your wisdom, of your courage. All to
her. I have nothing. Nothing. Take, take."
She tore the belt off
and threw it at Joanna's feet. She flung down with haste the armlets, the gold
pins, the flowers; and the long hair, released, fell scattered over her
shoulders, framing in its blackness the wild exaltation of her face.
"Drive her off,
Peter. Drive off the heathen savage," persisted Joanna. She seemed to have
lost her head altogether. She stamped, clinging to Willems' arm with both her
hands.
"Look," cried
Aïssa. "Look at the mother of your son! She is afraid. Why does she not go
from before my face? Look at her. She is ugly."
Joanna seemed to
understand the scornful tone of the words. As Aïssa stepped back again nearer
to the tree she let go her husband's arm, rushed at her madly, slapped her
face, then, swerving round, darted at the child who, unnoticed, had been
wailing for some time, and, snatching him up, flew down to the waterside,
sending shriek after shriek in an access of insane terror.
Willems made for the
revolver. Aïssa passed swiftly, giving him an unexpected push that sent him
staggering away from the tree. She caught up the weapon, put it behind her
back, and cried--
"You shall not
have it. Go after her. Go to meet danger. . . . Go to meet death. . . . Go
unarmed. . . . Go with empty hands and sweet words . . . as you came to me. . .
. Go helpless and lie to the forests, to the sea . . . to the death that waits
for you. . . ."
She ceased as if
strangled. She saw in the horror of the passing seconds the half-naked,
wild-looking man before her; she heard the faint shrillness of Joanna's insane
shrieks for help somewhere down by the riverside. The sunlight streamed on her,
on him, on the mute land, on the murmuring river--the gentle brilliance of a
serene morning that, to her, seemed traversed by ghastly flashes of uncertain
darkness. Hate filled the world, filled the space between them --the hate of
race, the hate of hopeless diversity, the hate of blood; the hate against the
man born in the land of lies and of evil from which nothing but misfortune
comes to those who are not white. And as she stood, maddened, she heard a
whisper near her, the whisper of the dead Omar's voice saying in her ear:
"Kill! Kill!"
She cried, seeing him
move--
"Do not come near
me . . . or you die now! Go while I remember yet . . . remember. . . ."
Willems pulled himself
together for a struggle. He dared not go unarmed. He made a long stride, and
saw her raise the revolver. He noticed that she had not cocked it, and said to
himself that, even if she did fire, she would surely miss. Go too high; it was
a stiff trigger. He made a step nearer--saw the long barrel moving unsteadily
at the end of her extended arm. He thought: This is my time . . . He bent his
knees slightly, throwing his body forward, and took off with a long bound for a
tearing rush.
He saw a burst of red
flame before his eyes, and was deafened by a report that seemed to him louder
than a clap of thunder. Something stopped him short, and he stood aspiring in
his nostrils the acrid smell of the blue smoke that drifted from before his
eyes like an immense cloud. . . . Missed, by Heaven! . . . Thought so! . . .
And he saw her very far off, throwing her arms up, while the revolver, very
small, lay on the ground between them. . . . Missed! . . . He would go and pick
it up now. Never before did he understand, as in that second, the joy, the
triumphant delight of sunshine and of life. His mouth was full of something
salt and warm. He tried to cough; spat out. . . . Who shrieks: In the name of
God, he dies!--he dies!--Who dies?-- Must pick up--Night!--What? . . . Night
already. . . .
* * * * *
Many years afterwards
Almayer was telling the story of the great revolution in Sambir to a chance
visitor from Europe. He was a Roumanian, half naturalist, half orchid-hunter
for commercial purposes, who used to declare to everybody, in the first five
minutes of acquaintance, his intention of writing a scientific book about
tropical countries. On his way to the interior he had quartered himself upon
Almayer. He was a man of some education, but he drank his gin neat, or only, at
most, would squeeze the juice of half a small lime into the raw spirit. He said
it was good for his health, and, with that medicine before him, he would
describe to the surprised Almayer the wonders of European capitals; while
Almayer, in exchange, bored him by expounding, with gusto, his unfavourable
opinions of Sambir's social and political life. They talked far into the night,
across the deal table on the verandah, while, between them, clear- winged,
small, and flabby insects, dissatisfied with moonlight, streamed in and
perished in thousands round the smoky light of the evil-smelling lamp.
Almayer, his face
flushed, was saying--
"Of course, I did
not see that. I told you I was stuck in the creek on account of
father's--Captain Lingard's--susceptible temper. I am sure I did it all for the
best in trying to facilitate the fellow's escape; but Captain Lingard was that
kind of man--you know --one couldn't argue with. Just before sunset the water
was high enough, and we got out of the creek. We got to Lakamba's clearing
about dark. All very quiet; I thought they were gone, of course, and felt very
glad. We walked up the courtyard--saw a big heap of something lying in the
middle. Out of that she rose and rushed at us. By God. . . . You know those
stories of faithful dogs watching their masters' corpses . . . don't let
anybody approach . . . got to beat them off--and all that. . . . Well, 'pon my
word we had to beat her off. Had to! She was like a fury. Wouldn't let us touch
him. Dead--of course. Should think so. Shot through the lung, on the left side,
rather high up, and at pretty close quarters too, for the two holes were small.
Bullet came out through the shoulder-blade. After we had overpowered her--you
can't imagine how strong that woman was; it took three of us--we got the body
into the boat and shoved off. We thought she had fainted then, but she got up
and rushed into the water after us. Well, I let her clamber in. What could I
do? The river's full of alligators. I will never forget that pull up-stream in
the night as long as I live. She sat in the bottom of the boat, holding his
head in her lap, and now and again wiping his face with her hair. There was a
lot of blood dried about his mouth and chin. And for all the six hours of that
journey she kept on whispering tenderly to that corpse! . . . I had the mate of
the schooner with me. The man said afterwards that he wouldn't go through it
again--not for a handful of diamonds. And I believed him--I did. It makes me
shiver. Do you think he heard? No! I mean somebody--something--heard? . .
."
"I am a
materialist," declared the man of science, tilting the bottle shakily over
the emptied glass.
Almayer shook his head
and went on--
"Nobody saw how it
really happened but that man Mahmat. He always said that he was no further off
from them than two lengths of his lance. It appears the two women rowed each
other while that Willems stood between them. Then Mahmat says that when Joanna
struck her and ran off, the other two seemed to become suddenly mad together.
They rushed here and there. Mahmat says--those were his very words: 'I saw her
standing holding the pistol that fires many times and pointing it all over the
campong. I was afraid--lest she might shoot me, and jumped on one side. Then I
saw the white man coming at her swiftly. He came like our master the tiger when
he rushes out of the jungle at the spears held by men. She did not take aim.
The barrel of her weapon went like this-- from side to side, but in her eyes I
could see suddenly a great fear. There was only one shot. She shrieked while
the white man stood blinking his eyes and very straight, till you could count
slowly one, two, three; then he coughed and fell on his face. The daughter of
Omar shrieked without drawing breath, till he fell. I went away then and left
silence behind me. These things did not concern me, and in my boat there was
that other woman who had promised me money. We left directly, paying no
attention to her cries. We are only poor men--and had but a small reward for
our trouble!' That's what Mahmat said. Never varied. You ask him yourself. He's
the man you hired the boats from, for your journey up the river."
"The most
rapacious thief I ever met!" exclaimed the traveller, thickly.
"Ah! He is a
respectable man. His two brothers got themselves speared--served them right.
They went in for robbing Dyak graves. Gold ornaments in them you know. Serve
them right. But he kept respectable and got on. Aye! Everybody got on-- but I.
And all through that scoundrel who brought the Arabs here."
"De mortuis nil ni
. . . num," muttered Almayer's guest.
"I wish you would
speak English instead of jabbering in your own language, which no one can
understand," said Almayer, sulkily.
"Don't be
angry," hiccoughed the other. "It's Latin, and it's wisdom. It means:
Don't waste your breath in abusing shadows. No offence there. I like you. You
have a quarrel with Providence--so have I. I was meant to be a professor,
while--look."
His head nodded. He sat
grasping the glass. Almayer walked up and down, then stopped suddenly.
"Yes, they all got
on but I. Why? I am better than any of them. Lakamba calls himself a Sultan,
and when I go to see him on business sends that one- eyed fiend of
his--Babalatchi--to tell me that the ruler is asleep; and shall sleep for a long
time. And that Babalatchi! He is the Shahbandar of the State --if you please.
Oh Lord! Shahbandar! The pig! A vagabond I wouldn't let come up these steps
when he first came here. . . . Look at Abdulla now. He lives here because--he
says--here he is away from white men. But he has hundreds of thousands. Has a
house in Penang. Ships. What did he not have when he stole my trade from me! He
knocked everything here into a cocked hat, drove father to gold-hunting--then
to Europe, where he disappeared. Fancy a man like Captain Lingard disappearing
as though he had been a common coolie. Friends of mine wrote to London asking
about him. Nobody ever heard of him there! Fancy! Never heard of Captain
Lingard!"
The learned gatherer of
orchids lifted his head.
"He was a
sen--sentimen--tal old buc--buccaneer," he stammered out, "I like
him. I'm sent--tal myself."
He winked slowly at
Almayer, who laughed.
"Yes! I told you
about that gravestone. Yes! Another hundred and twenty dollars thrown away.
Wish I had them now. He would do it. And the inscription. Ha! ha! ha! 'Peter
Willems, Delivered by the Mercy of God from his Enemy.' What enemy --unless
Captain Lingard himself? And then it has no sense. He was a great man--father
was--but strange in many ways. . . . You haven't seen the grave? On the top of
that hill, there, on the other side of the river. I must show you. We will go
there."
"Not I!" said
the other. "No interest--in the sun--too tiring. . . . Unless you carry me
there."
As a matter of fact he
was carried there a few months afterwards, and his was the second white man's
grave in Sambir; but at present he was alive if rather drunk. He asked
abruptly--
"And the
woman?"
"Oh! Lingard, of
course, kept her and her ugly brat in Macassar. Sinful waste of money--that!
Devil only knows what became of them since father went home. I had my daughter
to look after. I shall give you a word to Mrs. Vinck in Singapore when you go
back. You shall see my Nina there. Lucky man. She is beautiful, and I hear so
accomplished, so . . ."
"I have heard
already twenty . . . a hundred times about your daughter. What
ab--about--that--that other one, Aï--ssa?"
"She! Oh! we kept
her here. She was mad for a long time in a quiet sort of way. Father thought a
lot of her. He gave her a house to live in, in my campong. She wandered about,
speaking to nobody unless she caught sight of Abdulla, when she would have a
fit of fury, and shriek and curse like anything. Very often she would
disappear--and then we all had to turn out and hunt for her, because father
would worry till she was brought back. Found her in all kinds of places. Once
in the abandoned campong of Lakamba. Sometimes simply wandering in the bush.
She had one favourite spot we always made for at first. It was ten to one on
finding her there--a kind of a grassy glade on the banks of a small brook. Why
she preferred that place, I can't imagine! And such a job to get her away from
there. Had to drag her away by main force. Then, as the time passed, she became
quieter and more settled, like. Still, all my people feared her greatly. It was
my Nina that tamed her. You see the child was naturally fearless and used to
have her own way, so she would go to her and pull at her sarong, and order her
about, as she did everybody. Finally she, I verily believe, came to love the
child. Nothing could resist that little one-- you know. She made a capital
nurse. Once when the little devil ran away from me and fell into the river off
the end of the jetty, she jumped in and pulled her out in no time. I very
nearly died of fright. Now of course she lives with my serving girls, but does
what she likes. As long as I have a handful of rice or a piece of cotton in the
store she sha'n't want for anything. You have seen her. She brought in the
dinner with Ali."
"What! That
doubled-up crone?"
"Ah!" said
Almayer. "They age quickly here. And long foggy nights spent in the bush
will soon break the strongest backs--as you will find out yourself soon."
"Dis . . .
disgusting," growled the traveller.
He dozed off. Almayer
stood by the balustrade looking out at the bluish sheen of the moonlit night.
The forests, unchanged and sombre, seemed to hang over the water, listening to
the unceasing whisper of the great river; and above their dark wall the hill on
which Lingard had buried the body of his late prisoner rose in a black, rounded
mass, upon the silver paleness of the sky. Almayer looked for a long time at
the clean-cut outline of the summit, as if trying to make out through darkness
and distance the shape of that expensive tombstone. When he turned round at
last he saw his guest sleeping, his arms on the table, his head on his arms.
"Now, look
here!" he shouted, slapping the table with the palm of his hand.
The naturalist woke up,
and sat all in a heap, staring owlishly.
"Here!" went
on Almayer, speaking very loud and thumping the table, "I want to know.
You, who say you have read all the books, just tell me . . . why such infernal
things are ever allowed. Here I am! Done harm to nobody, lived an honest life .
. . and a scoundrel like that is born in Rotterdam or some such place at the
other end of the world somewhere, travels out here, robs his employer, runs
away from his wife, and ruins me and my Nina--he ruined me, I tell you--and
gets himself shot at last by a poor miserable savage, that knows nothing at all
about him really. Where's the sense of all this? Where's your Providence?
Where's the good for anybody in all this? The world's a swindle! A swindle! Why
should I suffer? What have I done to be treated so?"
He howled out his
string of questions, and suddenly became silent. The man who ought to have been
a professor made a tremendous effort to articulate distinctly--
"My dear fellow,
don't--don't you see that the ba-bare fac--the fact of your existence is
off--offensive. . . . I--I like you--like . . ."
He fell forward on the
table, and ended his remarks by an unexpected and prolonged snore.
Almayer shrugged his
shoulders and walked back to the balustrade. He drank his own trade gin very
seldom, but when he did, a ridiculously small quantity of the stuff could
induce him to assume a rebellious attitude towards the scheme of the universe.
And now, throwing his body over the rail, he shouted impudently into the night,
turning his face towards that far-off and invisible slab of imported granite
upon which Lingard had thought fit to record God's mercy and Willems' escape.
"Father was
wrong--wrong!" he yelled. "I want you to smart for it. You must smart
for it! Where are you, Willems? Hey? . . . Hey? . . . Where there is no mercy
for you--I hope!"
"Hope,"
repeated in a whispering echo the startled forests, the river and the hills;
and Almayer, who stood waiting, with a smile of tipsy attention on his lips,
heard no other answer.
THE END