Almayer's Folly
by Joseph Conrad
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

by Joseph Conrad

CHAPTER I.

"Kaspar! Makan!"

The well-known shrill voice startled Almayer from his dream of
splendid future into the unpleasant realities of the present
hour. An unpleasant voice too. He had heard it for many years,
and with every year he liked it less. No matter; there would be
an end to all this soon.

He shuffled uneasily, but took no further notice of the call.
Leaning with both his elbows on the balustrade of the verandah,
he went on looking fixedly at the great river that flowed--
indifferent and hurried--before his eyes. He liked to look at it
about the time of sunset; perhaps because at that time the
sinking sun would spread a glowing gold tinge on the waters of
the Pantai, and Almayer's thoughts were often busy with gold;
gold he had failed to secure; gold the others had secured--
dishonestly, of course--or gold he meant to secure yet, through
his own honest exertions, for himself and Nina. He absorbed
himself in his dream of wealth and power away from this  coast
where he had dwelt for so many years, forgetting the bitterness
of toil and strife in the vision of a great and splendid reward.
They would live in Europe, he and his daughter. They would be
rich and respected. Nobody would think of her mixed blood in the
presence of her great beauty and of his immense wealth.
Witnessing her triumphs he would grow young again, he would
forget the twenty-five years of heart-breaking struggle on this
coast where he felt like a prisoner. All this was nearly within
his reach. Let only Dain return! And return soon he must--in
his own interest, for his own share. He was  now more than a
week late! Perhaps he would return to-night. Such were Almayer's
thoughts as, standing on the verandah of his new but already
decaying house--that last failure of his life-- he looked on the
broad river. There was no tinge of gold on it this evening, for
it had been swollen by the rains, and rolled an angry and muddy
flood under his inattentive eyes, carrying small drift-wood and
big dead logs, and whole uprooted trees with branches and
foliage, amongst which the water swirled and roared angrily.

One of those drifting trees grounded on the shelving shore, just
by the house, and Almayer, neglecting his dream, watched it with
languid interest. The tree swung slowly round, amid the hiss and
foam of the water, and soon getting free of the obstruction began
to move down stream again, rolling slowly over, raising upwards a
long, denuded branch, like a hand lifted in mute appeal to heaven
against the river's brutal and unnecessary violence. Almayer's
interest in the fate of that tree increased rapidly. He leaned
over to see if it would clear the low point below. It did; then
he drew back, thinking that now its course was free down to the
sea, and he envied the lot of that inanimate thing now growing
small and indistinct in the deepening darkness. As he lost sight
of it altogether he began to wonder how far out to sea it would
drift. Would the current carry it north or south? South,
probably, till it drifted in sight of Celebes, as far as
Macassar, perhaps!

Macassar! Almayer's quickened fancy distanced the tree on its
imaginary voyage, but his memory lagging behind some twenty years
or more in point of time saw a young and slim Almayer, clad all
in white and modest-looking, landing from the Dutch mail-boat on
the dusty jetty of Macassar, coming to woo fortune in the godowns
of old Hudig. It was an important epoch in his life, the
beginning of a new existence for him. His father, a subordinate
official employed in the Botanical Gardens of Buitenzorg, was no
doubt delighted to place his son in such a firm. The young man
himself too was nothing loth to leave the poisonous shores of
Java, and the meagre comforts of the parental bungalow, where the
father grumbled all day at the stupidity of native gardeners, and
the mother from the depths of her long easy-chair bewailed the
lost glories of Amsterdam, where she had been brought up, and of
her position as the daughter of a cigar dealer there.

Almayer had left his home with a light heart and a lighter
pocket, speaking English well, and strong in arithmetic; ready to
conquer the world, never doubting that he would.

After those twenty years, standing in the close and stifling heat
of a Bornean evening, he recalled with pleasurable regret the
image of Hudig's lofty and cool warehouses with their long and
straight avenues of gin cases and bales of Manchester goods; the
big door swinging noiselessly; the dim light of the place, so
delightful after the glare of the streets; the little railed-off
spaces amongst piles of merchandise where the Chinese clerks,
neat, cool, and sad-eyed, wrote rapidly and in silence amidst the
din of the working gangs rolling casks or shifting cases to a
muttered song, ending with a desperate yell. At the upper end,
facing the great door, there was a larger space railed off, well
lighted; there the noise was subdued by distance, and above it
rose the soft and continuous clink of silver guilders which other
discreet Chinamen were counting and piling up under the
supervision of Mr. Vinck, the cashier, the genius presiding  in
the place--the right hand of the Master.

In that clear space Almayer worked at his table not far from a
little green painted door, by which always stood a Malay in a red
sash and turban, and whose hand, holding a small string dangling
from above, moved up and down with the regularity of a machine.
The string worked a punkah on the other side of the green door,
where the so-called private office was, and where old Hudig--the
Master--sat enthroned, holding noisy receptions. Sometimes the
little door would fly open disclosing to the outer world, through
the bluish haze of tobacco smoke, a long table loaded with
bottles of various shapes and tall water-pitchers, rattan
easy-chairs occupied by noisy men in sprawling attitudes, while
the Master would put his head through and, holding by the handle,
would grunt confidentially to Vinck; perhaps send an order
thundering down the warehouse, or spy a hesitating stranger and
greet him with a friendly roar, "Welgome, Gapitan! ver' you gome
vrom? Bali, eh? Got bonies? I vant bonies! Vant all you got;
ha! ha! ha! Gome in!"  Then the stranger was dragged in, in a
tempest of yells, the door was shut, and the usual noises
refilled the place; the song of the workmen, the rumble of
barrels, the scratch of rapid pens; while above all rose the
musical chink of broad silver pieces streaming ceaselessly
through the yellow fingers of the attentive Chinamen.

At that time Macassar was teeming with life and commerce. It was
the point in the islands where tended all those bold spirits who,
fitting out schooners on the Australian coast, invaded the Malay
Archipelago in search of money and adventure. Bold, reckless,
keen in business, not disinclined for a brush with the pirates
that were to be found on many a coast as yet, making money fast,
they used to have a general "rendezvous" in the bay for purposes
of trade and dissipation. The Dutch merchants called those men
English pedlars; some of them were undoubtedly gentlemen for whom
that kind of life had a charm; most were seamen; the acknowledged
king of them all was Tom Lingard, he whom the Malays, honest or
dishonest, quiet fishermen or desperate cut-throats, recognised
as "the Rajah-Laut"--the King of the Sea.

Almayer had heard of him before he had been three days in
Macassar, had heard the stories of his smart business
transactions, his loves, and also of his desperate fights with
the Sulu pirates, together with the romantic tale of some child--
a girl--found in a piratical prau by the victorious Lingard,
when, after a long contest, he boarded the craft, driving the
crew overboard. This girl, it was generally known, Lingard had
adopted, was having her educated in some convent in Java,  and
spoke of her as "my daughter."  He had sworn a mighty oath to
marry her to a white man before he went home and to leave her all
his money. "And Captain Lingard has lots of money," would say
Mr. Vinck solemnly, with his head on one side, "lots of money;
more than Hudig!"  And after a pause--just to let his hearers
recover from their astonishment at such an incredible assertion--
he would add in an explanatory whisper, "You know, he has
discovered a river."

That was it! He had discovered a river! That was the fact
placing old Lingard so much above the common crowd of sea-going
adventurers who traded with Hudig in the daytime and drank
champagne, gambled, sang noisy songs, and made love to half-caste
girls under the broad verandah of the Sunda Hotel at night. Into
that river, whose entrances himself only knew, Lingard used to
take his assorted cargo of Manchester goods, brass gongs, rifles
and gunpowder. His brig Flash, which he commanded himself, would
on those occasions disappear quietly during the night from the
roadstead while his companions were sleeping off the effects of
the midnight carouse, Lingard seeing them drunk under the table
before going on board, himself unaffected by any amount of
liquor. Many tried to follow him and find that land of plenty
for gutta-percha and rattans, pearl shells and birds' nests,  wax
and gum-dammar, but the little Flash could outsail every craft in
those seas. A few of them came to grief on hidden sandbanks and
coral reefs, losing their all and barely escaping with life from
the cruel grip of this sunny and smiling sea; others got
discouraged; and for many years the green and peaceful-looking
islands guarding the entrances to the promised land kept their
secret with all the merciless serenity of tropical nature. And
so Lingard came and went on his secret or open expeditions,
becoming a hero in Almayer's eyes by the boldness and enormous
profits of his ventures, seeming to  Almayer a very great man
indeed as he saw him marching up the  warehouse, grunting a "how
are you?" to Vinck, or greeting Hudig, the Master, with a
boisterous "Hallo, old pirate! Alive yet?" as a preliminary to
transacting business behind the little green door. Often of an
evening, in the silence of the then deserted warehouse, Almayer
putting away his papers before driving home with Mr. Vinck, in
whose household he lived, would pause listening to the noise of a
hot discussion in the private office, would hear the deep and
monotonous growl of the Master, and the roared-out interruptions
of Lingard--two mastiffs fighting over a marrowy bone. But to
Almayer's ears it sounded like a quarrel of Titans--a battle of
the gods.

After a year or so Lingard, having been brought often in contact
with Almayer in the course of business, took a sudden and, to the
onlookers, a rather inexplicable fancy to the young man. He sang
his praises, late at night, over a convivial glass to his cronies
in the Sunda Hotel, and one fine morning electrified Vinck by
declaring that he must have "that young fellow for a supercargo.
Kind of captain's clerk. Do all my quill-driving for me."  Hudig
consented. Almayer, with youth's natural craving for change, was
nothing loth, and packing his few belongings, started in the
Flash on one of those long cruises when the old seaman was wont
to visit almost every island in the archipelago. Months slipped
by, and Lingard's friendship seemed to increase. Often pacing
the deck with Almayer, when the faint night breeze, heavy with
aromatic exhalations of the islands, shoved the brig gently along
under the peaceful and sparkling sky, did the old seaman open his
heart to his entranced listener. He spoke of his past life, of
escaped dangers, of big profits in his trade, of new combinations
that were in the future to bring profits bigger still. Often he
had mentioned his daughter, the girl found in the pirate prau,
speaking of her with a strange assumption of fatherly tenderness.
"She must be a big girl now," he used to say. "It's nigh unto
four years since I have seen her! Damme, Almayer, if I don't
think we will run into Sourabaya this trip."  And after such a
declaration he always dived into his cabin muttering to himself,
"Something must be done--must be done."  More than once he would
astonish Almayer by walking up to him rapidly, clearing his
throat with a powerful "Hem!" as if he was going to say
something, and then turning abruptly away to lean over the
bulwarks in silence, and watch, motionless, for hours, the gleam
and sparkle of the phosphorescent sea along the ship's side. It
was the night before arriving in Sourabaya when one of those
attempts at confidential communication succeeded. After clearing
his throat he spoke. He spoke to some purpose. He wanted
Almayer to marry his adopted daughter. "And don't you kick
because you're white!" he shouted, suddenly, not giving the
surprised young man the time to say a word. "None of that with
me! Nobody will see the colour of your wife's skin. The dollars
are too thick for that, I tell you! And mind you, they will be
thicker yet before I die. There will be millions, Kaspar!
Millions I say! And all for her--and for you, if you do what you
are told."

Startled by the unexpected proposal, Almayer hesitated, and
remained silent for a minute. He was gifted with a strong and
active imagination, and in that short space of time he saw, as in
a flash of dazzling light, great piles of shining guilders, and
realised all the possibilities of an opulent existence. The
consideration, the indolent ease of life--for which he felt
himself so well fitted--his ships, his warehouses, his
merchandise (old Lingard would not live for ever), and, crowning
all, in the far future gleamed like a fairy palace the big
mansion in Amsterdam, that earthly paradise of his dreams, where,
made king amongst men by old Lingard's money, he would pass the
evening of his days in inexpressible splendour. As to the  other
side of the picture--the companionship for life of a Malay girl,
that legacy of a boatful of pirates--there was only within him a
confused consciousness of shame that he a white man-- Still, a
convent education of four years!--and then she may mercifully
die. He was always lucky, and money is powerful! Go through it.
Why not? He had a vague idea of shutting her up somewhere,
anywhere, out of his gorgeous future. Easy enough to dispose of
a Malay woman, a slave, after all, to his Eastern mind, convent
or no convent, ceremony or no ceremony.

He lifted his head and confronted the anxious yet irate seaman.

"I--of course--anything you wish, Captain Lingard."

"Call me father, my boy. She does," said the mollified old
adventurer. "Damme, though, if I didn't think you were going to
refuse. Mind you, Kaspar, I always get my way, so it would have
been no use. But you are no fool."

He remembered well that time--the look, the accent, the words,
the effect they produced on him, his very surroundings. He
remembered the narrow slanting deck of the brig, the silent
sleeping coast, the smooth black surface of the sea with a great
bar of gold laid on it by the rising moon. He remembered it all,
and he remembered his feelings of mad exultation at the thought
of that fortune thrown into his hands. He was no fool then, and
he was no fool now. Circumstances had been against him; the
fortune was gone, but hope remained.

He shivered in the night air, and suddenly became aware of the
intense darkness which, on the sun's departure, had closed in
upon the river, blotting out the outlines of the opposite shore.
Only the fire of dry branches lit outside the stockade of the
Rajah's compound called fitfully into view the ragged trunks of
the surrounding trees, putting a stain of glowing red half-way
across the river where the drifting logs were hurrying towards
the sea through the impenetrable gloom. He had a hazy
recollection of having been called some time during the  evening
by his wife. To his dinner probably. But a man busy
contemplating the wreckage of his past in the dawn of new hopes
cannot be hungry whenever his rice is ready. Time he went home,
though; it was getting late.

He stepped cautiously on the loose planks towards the ladder. A
lizard, disturbed by the noise, emitted a plaintive note and
scurried through the long grass growing on the bank. Almayer
descended the ladder carefully, now thoroughly recalled to the
realities of life by the care necessary to prevent a fall on the
uneven ground where the stones, decaying planks, and half-sawn
beams were piled up in inextricable confusion. As he turned
towards the house where he lived--"my old house" he called it--
his ear detected the splash of paddles away in the darkness of
the river. He stood still in the path, attentive and surprised
at anybody being on the river at this late hour during such a
heavy freshet. Now he could hear the paddles distinctly, and
even a rapidly exchanged word in low tones, the heavy breathing
of men fighting with the current, and hugging the bank on which
he stood. Quite close, too, but it was too dark to distinguish
anything under the overhanging bushes.

"Arabs, no doubt," muttered Almayer to himself, peering into the
solid blackness. "What are they up to now? Some of Abdulla's
business; curse him!"

The boat was very close now.

"Oh, ya! Man!" hailed Almayer.

The sound of voices ceased, but the paddles worked as furiously
as before. Then the bush in front of Almayer shook, and the
sharp sound of the paddles falling into the canoe rang in the
quiet night. They were holding on to the bush now; but Almayer
could hardly make out an indistinct dark shape of a man's head
and shoulders above the bank.

"You Abdulla?" said Almayer, doubtfully.

A grave voice answered--

"Tuan Almayer is speaking to a friend. There is no Arab here."

Almayer's heart gave a great leap.

"Dain!" he exclaimed. "At last! at last! I have been waiting
for you every day and every night. I had nearly given you up."

"Nothing could have stopped me from coming back here," said the
other, almost violently. "Not even death," he whispered to
himself.

"This is a friend's talk, and is very good," said Almayer,
heartily. "But you are too far here. Drop down to the jetty and
let your men cook their rice in my campong while we talk in the
house."

There was no answer to that invitation.

"What is it?" asked Almayer, uneasily. "There is nothing wrong
with the brig, I hope?"

"The brig is where no Orang Blanda can lay his hands on her,"
said Dain, with a gloomy tone in his voice, which Almayer, in his
elation, failed to notice.

"Right," he said. "But where are all your men? There are only
two with you."

"Listen, Tuan Almayer," said Dain. "To-morrow's sun shall see me
in your house, and then we will talk. Now I must go to the
Rajah."

"To the Rajah! Why? What do you want with Lakamba?"

"Tuan, to-morrow we talk like friends. I must see Lakamba
to-night."

"Dain, you are not going to abandon me now, when all is ready?"
asked Almayer, in a pleading voice.

"Have I not returned? But I must see Lakamba first for your good
and mine."

The shadowy head disappeared abruptly. The bush, released from
the grasp of the bowman, sprung back with a swish, scattering a
shower of muddy water over Almayer, as he bent forward, trying to
see.

In a little while the canoe shot into the streak of light that
streamed on the river from the big fire on the opposite shore,
disclosing the outline of two men bending to their work, and a
third figure in the stern flourishing the steering paddle, his
head covered with an enormous round hat, like a fantastically
exaggerated mushroom.

Almayer watched the canoe till it passed out of the line of
light. Shortly after the murmur of many voices reached him
across the water. He could see the torches being snatched out of
the burning pile, and rendering visible for a moment the gate in
the stockade round which they crowded. Then they went in
apparently. The torches disappeared, and the scattered fire sent
out only a dim and fitful glare.

Almayer stepped homewards with long strides and mind uneasy.
Surely Dain was not thinking of playing him false. It was
absurd. Dain and Lakamba were both too much interested in the
success of his scheme. Trusting to Malays was poor work; but
then even Malays have some sense and understand their own
interest. All would be well--must be well. At this point in his
meditation he found himself at the foot of the steps leading to
the verandah of his home. From the low point of land where he
stood he could see both branches of the river. The main branch
of the Pantai was lost in complete darkness, for the fire at the
Rajah's had gone out altogether; but up the Sambir reach his eye
could follow the long line of Malay houses crowding the bank,
with here and there a dim light twinkling through bamboo walls,
or a smoky torch burning on the platforms built out over the
river. Further away, where the island ended in a low cliff, rose
a dark mass of buildings towering above the Malay structures.
Founded solidly on a firm ground with plenty of space, starred by
many lights burning strong and white, with a suggestion of
paraffin and lamp-glasses, stood the house and the godowns of
Abdulla bin Selim, the great trader of Sambir. To Almayer the
sight was very distasteful, and he shook his fist towards the
buildings that in their evident prosperity looked to him cold and
insolent, and contemptuous of his own fallen fortunes.

He mounted the steps of his house slowly.

In the middle of the verandah there was a round table. On it a
paraffin lamp without a globe shed a hard glare on the three
inner sides. The fourth side was open, and faced the river.
Between the rough supports of the high-pitched roof hung torn
rattan screens. There was no ceiling, and the harsh brilliance
of the lamp was toned above into a soft half-light that lost
itself in the obscurity amongst the rafters. The front wall was
cut in two by the doorway of a central passage closed by a red
curtain. The women's room opened into that passage, which led to
the back courtyard and to the cooking shed. In one of the side
walls there was a doorway. Half obliterated words--"Office:
Lingard and Co."--were still legible on the dusty door, which
looked as if it had not been opened for a very long time. Close
to the other side wall stood a bent-wood rocking-chair, and by
the table and about the verandah four wooden armchairs straggled
forlornly, as if ashamed of their shabby surroundings. A heap of
common mats lay in one corner, with an old hammock slung
diagonally above. In the other corner, his head wrapped in a
piece of red calico, huddled into a shapeless heap, slept a
Malay, one of Almayer's domestic slaves--"my own people," he used
to call them. A numerous and representative assembly of moths
were holding high revels round the lamp to the spirited music of
swarming mosquitoes. Under the palm-leaf thatch lizards raced on
the beams calling softly. A monkey, chained to one of the
verandah supports--retired for the night under the eaves-- peered
and grinned at Almayer, as it swung to one of the bamboo roof
sticks and caused a shower of dust and bits of dried  leaves to
settle on the shabby table. The floor was uneven, with many
withered plants and dried earth scattered about. A general air
of squalid neglect pervaded the place. Great red stains on the
floor and walls testified to frequent and indiscriminate
betel-nut chewing. The light breeze from the river swayed gently
the tattered blinds, sending from the woods opposite a faint and
sickly perfume as of decaying flowers.

Under Almayer's heavy tread the boards of the verandah creaked
loudly. The sleeper in the corner moved uneasily, muttering
indistinct words. There was a slight rustle behind the curtained
doorway, and a soft voice asked in Malay, "Is it you, father?"

"Yes, Nina. I am hungry. Is everybody asleep in this house?"

Almayer spoke jovially and dropped with a contented sigh into the
armchair nearest to the table. Nina Almayer came through the
curtained doorway followed by an old Malay woman, who busied
herself in setting upon the table a plateful of rice and fish, a
jar of water, and a bottle half full of genever. After carefully
placing before her master a cracked glass tumbler and a tin spoon
she went away noiselessly. Nina stood by the table, one hand
lightly resting on its edge, the other hanging listlessly by her
side. Her face turned towards the outer darkness, through which
her dreamy eyes seemed to see some entrancing picture, wore a
look of impatient expectancy. She was tall for a half-caste,
with the correct profile of the father, modified and strengthened
by the squareness of the lower part of the face inherited from
her maternal ancestors--the Sulu pirates. Her firm mouth, with
the lips slightly parted and disclosing a gleam of white teeth,
put a vague suggestion of ferocity into the impatient  expression
of her features. And yet her dark and perfect eyes had all the
tender softness of expression common to Malay women, but with a
gleam of superior intelligence; they looked gravely, wide open
and steady, as if facing something invisible to all other eyes,
while she stood there all in white, straight, flexible, graceful,
unconscious of herself, her low but broad forehead crowned with a
shining mass of long black hair that fell in heavy tresses over
her shoulders, and made her pale olive complexion look paler
still by the contrast of its coal-black hue.

Almayer attacked his rice greedily, but after a few mouthfuls he
paused, spoon in hand, and looked at his daughter curiously.

"Did you hear a boat pass about half an hour ago Nina?" he asked.

The girl gave him a quick glance, and moving away from the light
stood with her back to the table.

"No," she said, slowly.

"There was a boat. At last! Dain himself; and he went on to
Lakamba. I know it, for he told me so. I spoke to him, but he
would not come here to-night. Will come to-morrow, he said."

He swallowed another spoonful, then said--

"I am almost happy to-night, Nina. I can see the end of a long
road, and it leads us away from this miserable swamp. We shall
soon get away from here, I and you, my dear little girl, and then
--"

He rose from the table and stood looking fixedly before him as if
contemplating some enchanting vision.

"And then," he went on, "we shall be happy, you and I. Live rich
and respected far from here, and forget this life, and all this
struggle, and all this misery!"

He approached his daughter and passed his hand caressingly over
her hair.

"It is bad to have to trust a Malay," he said, "but I must own
that this Dain is a perfect gentleman--a perfect gentleman," he
repeated.

"Did you ask him to come here, father?" inquired Nina, not
looking at him.

"Well, of course. We shall start on the day after to-morrow,"
said Almayer, joyously. "We must not lose any time. Are you
glad, little girl?"

She was nearly as tall as himself, but he liked to recall the
time when she was little and they were all in all to each other.

"I am glad," she said, very low.

"Of course," said Almayer, vivaciously, "you cannot imagine what
is before you. I myself have not been to Europe, but I have
heard my mother talk so often that I seem to know all about it.
We shall live a--a glorious life. You shall see."

Again he stood silent by his daughter's side looking at that
enchanting vision. After a while he shook his clenched hand
towards the sleeping settlement.

"Ah! my friend Abdulla," he cried, "we shall see who will have
the best of it after all these years!"

He looked up the river and remarked calmly:

"Another thunderstorm. Well! No thunder will keep me awake
to-night, I know! Good-night, little girl," he whispered,
tenderly kissing her cheek. "You do not seem to be very happy
to-night, but to-morrow you will show a brighter face. Eh?"

Nina had listened to her father with her face unmoved, with her
half-closed eyes still gazing into the night now made more
intense by a heavy thunder-cloud that had crept down from the
hills blotting out the stars, merging sky, forest, and river into
one mass of almost palpable blackness. The faint breeze had died
out, but the distant rumble of thunder and pale flashes of
lightning gave warning of the approaching storm. With a sigh the
girl turned towards the table.

Almayer was in his hammock now, already half asleep.

"Take the lamp, Nina," he muttered, drowsily. "This place is
full of mosquitoes. Go to sleep, daughter."

But Nina put the lamp out and turned back again towards the
balustrade of the verandah, standing with her arm round the
wooden support and looking eagerly towards the Pantai reach. And
motionless there in the oppressive calm of the tropical night she
could see at each flash of lightning the forest lining both banks
up the river, bending before the furious blast of the coming
tempest, the upper reach of the river whipped into white foam by
the wind, and the black clouds torn into fantastic shapes
trailing low over the swaying trees. Round her all was as yet
stillness and peace, but she could hear afar off the roar of the
wind, the hiss of heavy rain, the wash of the waves on the
tormented river. It came nearer and nearer, with loud
thunder-claps and long flashes of vivid lightning, followed by
short periods of appalling blackness. When the storm reached the
low point dividing the river, the house shook in the wind, and
the rain pattered loudly on the palm-leaf roof, the thunder spoke
in one prolonged roll, and the incessant lightning disclosed a
turmoil of leaping waters, driving logs, and the big trees
bending before a brutal and merciless force.

Undisturbed by the nightly event of the rainy monsoon, the father
slept quietly, oblivious alike of his hopes, his misfortunes, his
friends, and his enemies; and the daughter stood motionless, at
each flash of lightning eagerly scanning the broad river with a
steady and anxious gaze.

CHAPTER II.

When, in compliance with Lingard's abrupt demand, Almayer
consented to wed the Malay girl, no one knew that on the day when
the interesting young convert had lost all her natural relations
and found a white father, she had been fighting desperately like
the rest of them on board the prau, and was only prevented from
leaping overboard, like the few other survivors, by a severe
wound in the leg. There, on the fore-deck of the prau, old
Lingard found her under a heap of dead and dying pirates, and had
her carried on the poop of the Flash before the Malay craft was
set on fire and sent adrift. She was conscious, and in the great
peace and stillness of the tropical evening succeeding the
turmoil of the battle, she watched all she held dear on earth
after her own savage manner, drift away into the gloom in a great
roar of flame and smoke. She lay there unheeding the careful
hands attending to her wound, silent and absorbed in gazing at
the funeral pile of those brave men she had so much admired and
so well helped in their contest with the redoubtable
"Rajah-Laut."

The light night breeze fanned the brig gently to the southward,
and the great blaze of light got smaller and smaller till it
twinkled only on the horizon like a setting star. It set: the
heavy canopy of smoke reflected the glare of hidden flames for a
short time and then disappeared also.

She realised that with this vanishing gleam her old life departed
too. Thenceforth there was slavery in the far countries, amongst
strangers, in unknown and perhaps terrible surroundings. Being
fourteen years old, she realised her position and came to that
conclusion, the only one possible to a Malay girl, soon ripened
under a tropical sun, and not unaware of her personal charms, of
which she heard many a young brave warrior of her father's crew
express an appreciative admiration. There was in her the dread
of the unknown; otherwise she accepted her position calmly, after
the manner of her people, and even considered it quite natural;
for was she not a daughter of warriors, conquered in battle, and
did she not belong rightfully to the victorious Rajah? Even the
evident kindness of the terrible old man must spring, she
thought, from admiration for his captive, and the flattered
vanity eased for her the pangs of sorrow after such an awful
calamity. Perhaps had she known of the high walls, the quiet
gardens, and the silent nuns of the Samarang convent, where her
destiny was leading her, she would have sought death in her dread
and hate of such a restraint. But in imagination she pictured to
herself the usual life of a Malay girl--the usual succession of
heavy work and fierce love, of intrigues, gold ornaments, of
domestic drudgery, and of that great but occult influence which
is one of the few rights of half-savage womankind. But her
destiny in the rough hands of the old sea-dog, acting under
unreasoning impulses of the heart, took a strange and to her a
terrible shape. She bore it all--the restraint and the teaching
and the new faith--with calm submission, concealing her hate  and
contempt for all that new life. She learned the language very
easily, yet understood but little of the new faith the good
sisters taught her, assimilating quickly only the superstitious
elements of the religion. She called Lingard father, gently and
caressingly, at each of his short and noisy visits, under the
clear impression that he was a great and dangerous power it was
good to propitiate. Was he not now her master? And during those
long four years she nourished a hope of finding favour in his
eyes and ultimately becoming his wife, counsellor, and guide.

Those dreams of the future were dispelled by the Rajah Laut's
"fiat," which made Almayer's fortune, as that young man fondly
hoped. And dressed in the hateful finery of Europe, the centre
of an interested circle of Batavian society, the young convert
stood before the altar with an unknown and sulky-looking white
man. For Almayer was uneasy, a little disgusted, and greatly
inclined to run away. A judicious fear of the adopted
father-in-law and a just regard for his own material welfare
prevented him from making a scandal; yet, while swearing
fidelity, he was concocting plans for getting rid of the  pretty
Malay girl in a more or less distant future. She, however, had
retained enough of conventual teaching to understand well that
according to white men's laws she was going to be Almayer's
companion and not his slave, and promised to herself to act
accordingly.

So when the Flash freighted with materials for building a new
house left the harbour of Batavia, taking away the young couple
into the unknown Borneo, she did not carry on her deck so much
love and happiness as old Lingard was wont to boast of before his
casual friends in the verandahs of various hotels. The old
seaman himself was perfectly happy. Now he had done his duty by
the girl. "You know I made her an orphan," he often concluded
solemnly, when talking about his own affairs to a scratch
audience of shore loafers--as it was his habit to do. And the
approbative shouts of his half-intoxicated auditors filled his
simple soul with delight and pride. "I carry everything right
through," was another of his sayings, and in pursuance of that
principle he pushed the building of house and godowns on the
Pantai River with feverish haste. The house for the young
couple; the godowns for the big trade Almayer was going to
develop while he (Lingard) would be able to give himself up to
some mysterious work which was only spoken of in hints, but was
understood to relate to gold and diamonds in the interior of the
island. Almayer was impatient too. Had he known what was before
him he might not have been so eager and full of hope as he stood
watching the last canoe of the Lingard expedition disappear in
the bend up the river. When, turning round, he beheld the pretty
little house, the big godowns built neatly by an army of Chinese
carpenters, the new jetty round which were clustered the trading
canoes, he felt a sudden elation in the thought that the world
was his.

But the world had to be conquered first, and its conquest was not
so easy as he thought. He was very soon made to understand that
he was not wanted in that corner of it where old Lingard and his
own weak will placed him, in the midst of unscrupulous intrigues
and of a fierce trade competition. The Arabs had found out the
river, had established a trading post in Sambir, and where they
traded they would be masters and suffer no rival. Lingard
returned unsuccessful from his first expedition, and departed
again spending all the profits of the legitimate trade on his
mysterious journeys. Almayer struggled with the difficulties of
his position, friendless and unaided, save for the protection
given to him for Lingard's sake by the old Rajah, the predecessor
of Lakamba. Lakamba himself, then living as a private individual
on a rice clearing, seven miles down the river, exercised all his
influence towards the help of the white man's enemies, plotting
against the old Rajah and Almayer with a certainty of
combination, pointing clearly to a profound knowledge of their
most secret affairs. Outwardly friendly, his portly form was
often to be seen on Almayer's verandah; his green turban and
gold-embroidered jacket shone in the front rank of the decorous
throng of Malays coming to greet Lingard on his returns from the
interior; his salaams were of the lowest, and his hand-shakings
of the heartiest, when welcoming the old trader. But his small
eyes took in the signs of the times, and he departed from those
interviews with a satisfied and furtive smile to hold long
consultations with his friend and ally, Syed Abdulla, the  chief
of the Arab trading post, a man of great wealth and of great
influence in the islands.

It was currently believed at that time in the settlement that
Lakamba's visits to Almayer's house were not limited to those
official interviews. Often on moonlight nights the belated
fishermen of Sambira saw a small canoe shooting out from the
narrow creek at the back of the white man's house, and the
solitary occupant paddle cautiously down the river in the deep
shadows of the bank; and those events, duly reported, were
discussed round the evening fires far into the night with the
cynicism of expression common to aristocratic Malays, and with a
malicious pleasure in the domestic misfortunes of the Orang
Blando--the hated Dutchman. Almayer went on struggling
desperately, but with a feebleness of purpose depriving him of
all chance of success against men so unscrupulous and resolute as
his rivals the Arabs. The trade fell away from the large
godowns, and the godowns themselves rotted piecemeal. The old
man's banker, Hudig of Macassar, failed, and with this went the
whole available capital. The profits of past years had been
swallowed up in Lingard's exploring craze. Lingard was in the
interior--perhaps dead--at all events giving no sign of life.
Almayer stood alone in the midst of those adverse circumstances,
deriving only a little comfort from the companionship of his
little daughter, born two years after the marriage, and at the
time some six years old. His wife had soon commenced to treat
him with a savage contempt expressed by sulky silence, only
occasionally varied by a flood of savage invective. He felt she
hated him, and saw her jealous eyes watching himself and the
child with almost an expression of hate. She was jealous of the
little girl's evident preference for the father, and Almayer felt
he was not safe with that woman in the house. While she was
burning the furniture, and tearing down the pretty curtains in
her unreasoning hate of those signs of civilisation, Almayer,
cowed by these outbursts of savage nature, meditated in silence
on the best way of getting rid of her. He thought of everything;
even planned murder in an undecided and feeble sort of way, but
dared do nothing--expecting every day the return of Lingard with
news of some immense good fortune. He returned indeed, but aged,
ill, a ghost of his former self, with the fire of fever burning
in his sunken eyes, almost the only survivor of the numerous
expedition. But he was successful at last! Untold riches were
in his grasp; he wanted more money--only a little more torealise
a dream of fabulous fortune. And Hudig had failed! Almayer
scraped all he could together, but the old man wanted more. If
Almayer could not get it he would go to Singapore--to Europe
even, but before all to Singapore; and he would take the little
Nina with him. The child must be brought up decently. He had
good friends in Singapore who would take care of her and have her
taught properly. All would be well, and that girl, upon whom the
old seaman seemed to have transferred all his former affection
for the mother, would be the richest woman in the East--in the
world even. So old Lingard shouted, pacing the verandah with his
heavy quarter-deck step, gesticulating with a smouldering
cheroot; ragged, dishevelled, enthusiastic; and Almayer, sitting
huddled up on a pile of mats, thought with dread of the
separation with the only human being he loved--with greater dread
still, perhaps, of the scene with his wife, the savage tigress
deprived of her young. She will poison me, thought the poor
wretch, well aware of that easy and final manner of solving  the
social, political, or family problems in Malay life.

To his great surprise she took the news very quietly, giving only
him and Lingard a furtive glance, and saying not a word. This,
however, did not prevent her the next day from jumping into the
river and swimming after the boat in which Lingard was carrying
away the nurse with the screaming child. Almayer had to give
chase with his whale-boat and drag her in by the hair in the
midst of cries and curses enough to make heaven fall. Yet after
two days spent in wailing, she returned to her former mode of
life, chewing betel-nut, and sitting all day amongst her women in
stupefied idleness. She aged very rapidly after that, and only
roused herself from her apathy to acknowledge by a scathing
remark or an insulting exclamation the accidental presence of her
husband. He had built for her a riverside hut in the compound
where she dwelt in perfect seclusion. Lakamba's visits had
ceased when, by a convenient decree of Providence and the help of
a little scientific manipulation, the old ruler of Sambir
departed this life. Lakamba reigned in his stead now, having
been well served by his Arab friends with the Dutch authorities.
Syed Abdulla was the great man and trader of the Pantai. Almayer
lay ruined and helpless under the close-meshed net of their
intrigues, owing his life only to his supposed knowledge of
Lingard's valuable secret. Lingard had disappeared. He wrote
once from Singapore saying the child was well, and under the care
of a Mrs. Vinck, and that he himself was going to Europe to raise
money for the great enterprise. "He was coming back soon. There
would be no difficulties," he wrote; "people would rush in with
their money."  Evidently they did not, for there was only one
letter more from him saying he was ill, had found no relation
living, but little else besides. Then came a complete silence.
Europe had swallowed up the Rajah Laut apparently, and Almayer
looked vainly westward for a ray of light out of the gloom of
his shattered hopes. Years passed, and the rare letters from
Mrs. Vinck, later on from the girl herself, were the only thing
to be looked to to make life bearable amongst the triumphant
savagery of the river. Almayer lived now alone, having even
ceased to visit his debtors who would not pay, sure of Lakamba's
protection. The faithful Sumatrese Ali cooked his rice and made
his coffee, for he dared not trust any one else, and least of all
his wife. He killed time wandering sadly in the overgrown paths
round the house, visiting the ruined godowns where a few brass
guns covered with verdigris and only a few broken cases of
mouldering Manchester goods reminded him of the good early times
when all this was full of life and merchandise, and he overlooked
a busy scene on the river bank, his little daughter by his side.
Now the up-country canoes glided past the little rotten wharf of
Lingard and Co., to paddle up the Pantai branch, and cluster
round the new jetty belonging to Abdulla. Not that they loved
Abdulla, but they dared not trade with the man whose star had
set. Had they done so they knew there was no mercy to be
expected from Arab or Rajah; no rice to be got on credit in the
times of scarcity from either; and Almayer could not help them,
having at times hardly enough for himself. Almayer, in his
isolation and despair, often envied his near neighbour the
Chinaman, Jim-Eng, whom he could see stretched on a pile of cool
mats, a wooden pillow under his head, an opium pipe in his
nerveless fingers. He did not seek, however, consolation in
opium--perhaps it was too expensive--perhaps his white man's
pride saved him from that degradation; but most likely it was the
thought of his little daughter in the far-off Straits
Settlements. He heard from her oftener since Abdulla bought a
steamer, which ran now between Singapore and the Pantai
settlement every three months or so. Almayer felt himself nearer
his daughter. He longed to see her, and planned a voyage to
Singapore, but put off his departure from year to year, always
expecting some favourable turn of fortune. He did not want to
meet her with empty hands and with no words of hope on his lips.
He could not take her back into that savage life to which he was
condemned himself. He was also a little afraid of her. What
would she think of him? He reckoned the years. A grown woman.
A civilised woman, young and hopeful; while he felt old and
hopeless, and very much like those savages round him. He asked
himself what was going to be her future. He could not answer
that question yet, and he dared not face her. And yet he longed
after her. He hesitated for years.

His hesitation was put an end to by Nina's unexpected appearance
in Sambir. She arrived in the steamer under the captain's care.
Almayer beheld her with surprise not unmixed with wonder. During
those ten years the child had changed into a woman, black-haired,
olive-skinned, tall, and beautiful, with great sad eyes, where
the startled expression common to Malay womankind was modified by
a thoughtful tinge inherited from her European ancestry. Almayer
thought with dismay of the meeting of his wife and daughter, of
what this grave girl in European clothes would think of her
betel-nut chewing mother, squatting in a dark hut, disorderly,
half naked, and sulky. He also feared an outbreak of temper on
the part of that pest of a woman he had hitherto managed to keep
tolerably quiet, thereby saving the remnants of his dilapidated
furniture. And he stood there before the closed door of the hut
in the blazing sunshine listening to the murmur of voices,
wondering what went on inside, wherefrom all the servant-maids
had been expelled at the beginning of the interview, and now
stood clustered by the palings with half-covered faces in a
chatter of curious speculation. He forgot himself there trying
to catch a stray word through the bamboo walls, till the captain
of the steamer, who had walked up with the girl, fearing a
sunstroke, took him under the arm and led him into the shade of
his own verandah: where Nina's trunk stood already, having been
landed by the steamer's men. As soon as Captain Ford had his
glass before him and his cheroot lighted, Almayer asked for the
explanation of his daughter's unexpected arrival. Ford said
little beyond generalising in vague but violent terms upon the
foolishness of women in general, and of Mrs. Vinck in particular.

"You know, Kaspar," said he, in conclusion, to the excited
Almayer, "it is deucedly awkward to have a half-caste girl in the
house. There's such a lot of fools about. There was that young
fellow from the bank who used to ride to the Vinck bungalow early
and late. That old woman thought it was for that Emma of hers.
When she found out what he wanted exactly, there was a row, I can
tell you. She would not have Nina--not an hour longer--in the
house. Fact is, I heard of this affair and took the girl to my
wife. My wife is a pretty good woman--as women go--and upon my
word we would have kept the girl for you, only she would not
stay. Now, then! Don't flare up, Kaspar. Sit still. What can
you do? It is better so. Let her stay with you. She was never
happy over there. Those two Vinck girls are no better than
dressed-up monkeys. They slighted her. You can't make her
white. It's no use you swearing at me. You can't. She is a
good girl for all that, but she would not tell my wife anything.
If you want to know, ask her yourself; but if I was you I would
leave her alone. You are welcome to her passage money, old
fellow, if you are short now."  And the skipper, throwing away
his cigar, walked off to "wake them up on board," as he expressed
it.

Almayer vainly expected to hear of the cause of his daughter's
return from his daughter's lips. Not that day, not on any other
day did she ever allude to her Singapore life. He did not care
to ask, awed by the calm impassiveness of her face, by those
solemn eyes looking past him on the great, still forests sleeping
in majestic repose to the murmur of the broad river. He accepted
the situation, happy in the gentle and protecting affection the
girl showed him, fitfully enough, for she had, as she called it,
her bad days when she used to visit her mother and remain long
hours in the riverside hut, coming out as inscrutable as ever,
but with a contemptuous look and a short word ready to answer any
of his speeches. He got used even to that, and on those days
kept quiet, although greatly alarmed by his wife's influence upon
the girl. Otherwise Nina adapted herself wonderfully to the
circumstances of a half-savage and miserable life. She accepted
without question or apparent disgust the neglect, the decay,  the
poverty of the household, the absence of furniture, and the
preponderance of rice diet on the family table. She lived with
Almayer in the little house (now sadly decaying) built originally
by Lingard for the young couple. The Malays eagerly discussed
her arrival. There were at the beginning crowded levees of Malay
women with their children, seeking eagerly after "Ubat" for all
the ills of the flesh from the young Mem Putih. In the cool of
the evening grave Arabs in long white shirts and yellow
sleeveless jackets walked slowly on the dusty path by the
riverside towards Almayer's gate, and made solemn calls upon that
Unbeliever under shallow pretences of business, only to get a
glimpse of the young girl in a highly decorous manner. Even
Lakamba came out of his stockade in a great pomp of war canoes
and red umbrellas, and landed on the rotten little jetty of
Lingard and Co. He came, he said, to buy a couple of brass guns
as a present to his friend the chief of Sambir Dyaks; and while
Almayer, suspicious but polite, busied himself in unearthing the
old popguns in the godowns, the Rajah sat on an armchair in the
verandah, surrounded by his respectful retinue waiting in vain
for Nina's appearance. She was in one of her bad days, and
remained in her mother's hut watching with her the ceremonious
proceedings on the verandah. The Rajah departed, baffled but
courteous, and soon Almayer began to reap the benefit of
improved relations with the ruler in the shape of the recovery of
some debts, paid to him with many apologies and many a low salaam
by debtors till then considered hopelessly insolvent. Under
these improving circumstances Almayer brightened up a little.
All was not lost perhaps. Those Arabs and Malays saw at last
that he was a man of some ability, he thought. And he began,
after his manner, to plan great things, to dream of great
fortunes for himself and Nina. Especially for Nina! Under these
vivifying impulses he asked Captain Ford to write to his friends
in England making inquiries after Lingard. Was he alive or dead?
If dead, had he left any papers, documents; any indications or
hints as to his great enterprise? Meantime he had found amongst
the rubbish in one of the empty rooms a note-book belonging to
the old adventurer. He studied the crabbed handwriting of its
pages and often grew meditative over it. Other things also woke
him up from his apathy. The stir made in the whole of the island
by the establishment of the British Borneo Company affected even
the sluggish flow of the Pantai life. Great changes were
expected; annexation was talked of; the Arabs grew civil.
Almayer began building his new house for the use of the future
engineers, agents, or settlers of the new Company. He spent
every available guilder on it with a confiding heart. One thing
only disturbed his happiness: his wife came out of her
seclusion, importing her green jacket, scant sarongs, shrill
voice, and witch-like appearance, into his quiet life in the
small bungalow. And his daughter seemed to accept that savage
intrusion into their daily existence with wonderful equanimity.
He did not like it, but dared say nothing.

CHAPTER III.

The deliberations conducted in London have a far-reaching
importance, and so the decision issued from the fog-veiled
offices of the Borneo Company darkened for Almayer the brilliant
sunshine of the Tropics, and added another drop of bitterness to
the cup of his disenchantments. The claim to that part of the
East Coast was abandoned, leaving the Pantai river under the
nominal power of Holland. In Sambir there was joy and
excitement. The slaves were hurried out of sight into the forest
and jungle, and the flags were run up to tall poles in the
Rajah's compound in expectation of a visit from Dutch man-of-war
boats.

The frigate remained anchored outside the mouth of the river, and
the boats came up in tow of the steam launch, threading their way
cautiously amongst a crowd of canoes filled with gaily dressed
Malays. The officer in command listened gravely to the loyal
speeches of Lakamba, returned the salaams of Abdulla, and assured
those gentlemen in choice Malay of the great Rajah's--down in
Batavia--friendship and goodwill towards the ruler and
inhabitants of this model state of Sambir.

Almayer from his verandah watched across the river the festive
proceedings, heard the report of brass guns saluting the new flag
presented to Lakamba, and the deep murmur of the crowd of
spectators surging round the stockade. The smoke of the firing
rose in white clouds on the green background of the forests, and
he could not help comparing his own fleeting hopes to the rapidly
disappearing vapour. He was by no means patriotically elated by
the event, yet he had to force himself into a gracious behaviour
when, the official reception being over, the naval officers of
the Commission crossed the river to pay a visit to the solitary
white man of whom they had heard, no doubt wishing also to catch
a glimpse of his daughter. In that they were disappointed, Nina
refusing to show herself; but they seemed easily consoled by the
gin and cheroots set before them by the hospitable Almayer; and
sprawling comfortably on the lame armchairs under the shade of
the verandah, while the blazing sunshine outside seemed to  set
the great river simmering in the heat, they filled the little
bungalow with the unusual sounds of European languages, with
noise and laughter produced by naval witticisms at the expense of
the fat Lakamba whom they had been complimenting so much that
very morning. The younger men in an access of good fellowship
made their host talk, and Almayer, excited by the sight of
European faces, by the sound of European voices, opened his heart
before the sympathising strangers, unaware of the amusement the
recital of his many misfortunes caused to those future admirals.
They drank his health, wished him many big diamonds and a
mountain of gold, expressed even an envy of the high destinies
awaiting him yet. Encouraged by so much friendliness, the
grey-headed and foolish dreamer invited his guests to visit his
new house. They went there through the long grass in a
straggling procession while their boats were got ready for the
return down the river in the cool of the evening. And in the
great empty rooms where the tepid wind entering through the
sashless windows whirled gently the dried leaves and the dust of
many days of neglect, Almayer in his white jacket and flowered
sarong, surrounded by a circle of glittering uniforms, stamped
his foot to show the solidity of the neatly-fitting floors and
expatiated upon the beauties and convenience of the building.
They listened and assented, amazed by the wonderful simplicity
and the foolish hopefulness of the man, till Almayer, carried
away by his excitement, disclosed his regret at the non-arrival
of the English, "who knew how to develop a rich country," as he
expressed it. There was a general laugh amongst the Dutch
officers at that unsophisticated statement, and a move was made
towards the boats; but when Almayer, stepping cautiously on the
rotten boards of the Lingard jetty, tried to approach the chief
of the Commission with some timid hints anent the protection
required by the Dutch subject against the wily Arabs, that salt
water diplomat told him significantly that the Arabs were better
subjects than Hollanders who dealt illegally in gunpowder with
the Malays. The innocent Almayer recognised there at once the
oily tongue of Abdulla and the solemn persuasiveness of Lakamba,
but ere he had time to frame an indignant protest the steam
launch and the string of boats moved rapidly down the river
leaving him on the jetty, standing open-mouthed in his surprise
and anger. There are thirty miles of river from Sambir to  the
gem-like islands of the estuary where the frigate was awaiting
the return of the boats. The moon rose long before the boats had
traversed half that distance, and the black forest sleeping
peacefully under her cold rays woke up that night to the ringing
laughter in the small flotilla provoked by some reminiscence of
Almayer's lamentable narrative. Salt-water jests at the poor
man's expense were passed from boat to boat, the non-appearance
of his daughter was commented upon with severe displeasure, and
the half-finished house built for the reception of Englishmen
received on that joyous night the name of "Almayer's Folly" by
the unanimous vote of the lighthearted seamen.

For many weeks after this visit life in Sambir resumed its even
and uneventful flow. Each day's sun shooting its morning rays
above the tree-tops lit up the usual scene of daily activity.
Nina walking on the path that formed the only street in the
settlement saw the accustomed sight of men lolling on the shady
side of the houses, on the high platforms; of women busily
engaged in husking the daily rice; of naked brown children racing
along the shady and narrow paths leading to the clearings.
Jim-Eng, strolling before his house, greeted her with a friendly
nod before climbing up indoors to seek his beloved opium pipe.
The elder children clustered round her, daring from long
acquaintance, pulling the skirts of her white robe with their
dark fingers, and showing their brilliant teeth in expectation
of a shower of glass beads. She greeted them with a quiet smile,
but always had a few friendly words for a Siamese girl, a slave
owned by Bulangi, whose numerous wives were said to be of a
violent temper. Well-founded rumour said also that the domestic
squabbles of that industrious cultivator ended generally in a
combined assault of all his wives upon the Siamese slave. The
girl herself never complained--perhaps from dictates of prudence,
but more likely through the strange, resigned apathy of
half-savage womankind. From early morning she was to be seen on
the paths amongst the houses--by the riverside or on the jetties,
the tray of pastry, it was her mission to sell, skilfully
balanced on her head. During the great heat of the day she
usually sought refuge in Almayer's campong, often finding shelter
in a shady corner of the verandah, where she squatted with her
tray before her, when invited by Nina. For "Mem Putih" she had
always a smile, but the presence of Mrs. Almayer, the very sound
of her shrill voice, was the signal for a hurried departure.

To this girl Nina often spoke; the other inhabitants of Sambir
seldom or never heard the sound of her voice. They got used to
the silent figure moving in their midst calm and white-robed, a
being from another world and incomprehensible to them. Yet
Nina's life for all her outward composure, for all the seeming
detachment from the things and people surrounding her, was far
from quiet, in consequence of Mrs. Almayer being much too active
for the happiness and even safety of the household. She had
resumed some intercourse with Lakamba, not personally, it is true
(for the dignity of that potentate kept him inside his stockade),
but through the agency of that potentate's prime minister,
harbour master, financial adviser, and general factotum.  That
gentleman--of Sulu origin--was certainly endowed with
statesmanlike qualities, although he was totally devoid of
personal charms. In truth he was perfectly repulsive, possessing
only one eye and a pockmarked face, with nose and lips horribly
disfigured by the small-pox. This unengaging individual often
strolled into Almayer's garden in unofficial costume, composed of
a piece of pink calico round his waist. There at the back of the
house, squatting on his heels on scattered embers, in close
proximity to the great iron boiler, where the family daily rice
was being cooked by the women under Mrs. Almayer's
superintendence, did that astute negotiator carry on long
conversations in Sulu language with Almayer's wife. What the
subject of their discourses was might have been guessed from the
subsequent domestic scenes by Almayer's hearthstone.

Of late Almayer had taken to excursions up the river. In a small
canoe with two paddlers and the faithful Ali for a steersman he
would disappear for a few days at a time. All his movements were
no doubt closely watched by Lakamba and Abdulla, for the man once
in the confidence of Rajah Laut was supposed to be in possession
of valuable secrets. The coast population of Borneo believes
implicitly in diamonds of fabulous value, in gold mines of
enormous richness in the interior. And all those imaginings are
heightened by the difficulty of penetrating far inland,
especially on the north-east coast, where the Malays and the
river tribes of Dyaks or Head-hunters are eternally quarrelling.
It is true enough that some gold reaches the coast in the hands
of those Dyaks when, during short periods of truce in the
desultory warfare, they visit the coast settlements of Malays.
And so the wildest exaggerations are built up and added to on the
slight basis of that fact.

Almayer in his quality of white man--as Lingard before him--had
somewhat better relations with the up-river tribes. Yet even his
excursions were not without danger, and his returns were eagerly
looked for by the impatient Lakamba. But every time the Rajah
was disappointed. Vain were the conferences by the rice-pot of
his factotum Babalatchi with the white man's wife. The white man
himself was impenetrable--impenetrable to persuasion, coaxing,
abuse; to soft words and shrill revilings; to desperate
beseechings or murderous threats; for Mrs. Almayer, in her
extreme desire to persuade her husband into an alliance with
Lakamba, played upon the whole gamut of passion. With her soiled
robe wound tightly under the armpits across her lean bosom, her
scant grayish hair tumbled in disorder over her projecting
cheek-bones, in suppliant attitude, she depicted with shrill
volubility the advantages of close union with a man so good and
so fair dealing.

"Why don't you go to the Rajah?" she screamed. "Why do you go
back to those Dyaks in the great forest? They should be killed.
You cannot kill them, you cannot; but our Rajah's men are brave!
You tell the Rajah where the old white man's treasure is. Our
Rajah is good! He is our very grandfather, Datu Besar! He will
kill those wretched Dyaks, and you shall have half the treasure.
Oh, Kaspar, tell where the treasure is! Tell me! Tell me out of
the old man's surat where you read so often at night"

On those occasions Almayer sat with rounded shoulders bending to
the blast of this domestic tempest, accentuating only each pause
in the torrent of his wife's eloquence by an angry growl, "There
is no treasure! Go away, woman!"  Exasperated by the sight of
his patiently bent back, she would at last walk round so as to
face him across the table, and clasping her robe with one hand
she stretched the other lean arm and claw-like hand to emphasise,
in a passion of anger and contempt, the rapid rush of scathing
remarks and bitter cursings heaped on the head of the man
unworthy to associate with brave Malay chiefs. It ended
generally by Almayer rising slowly, his long pipe in hand, his
face set into a look of inward pain, and walking away in silence.
He descended the steps and plunged into the long grass on his way
to the solitude of his new house, dragging his feet in a state of
physical collapse from disgust and fear before that fury. She
followed to the head of the steps, and sent the shafts of
indiscriminate abuse after the retreating form. And each of
those scenes was concluded by a piercing shriek, reaching him far
away. "You know, Kaspar, I am your wife! your own Christian wife
after your own Blanda law!"  For she knew that this was the
bitterest thing of all; the greatest regret of that man's life.

All these scenes Nina witnessed unmoved. She might have been
deaf, dumb, without any feeling as far as any expression of
opinion went. Yet oft when her father had sought the refuge of
the great dusty rooms of "Almayer's Folly," and her mother,
exhausted by rhetorical efforts, squatted wearily on her heels
with her back against the leg of the table, Nina would approach
her curiously, guarding her skirts from betel juice besprinkling
the floor, and gaze down upon her as one might look into the
quiescent crater of a volcano after a destructive eruption. Mrs.
Almayer's thoughts, after these scenes, were usually turned into
a channel of childhood reminiscences, and she gave them
utterance in a kind of monotonous recitative--slightly
disconnected, but generally describing the glories of the Sultan
of Sulu, his great splendour, his power, his great prowess; the
fear which benumbed the hearts of white men at the sight of his
swift piratical praus. And these muttered statements of her
grandfather's might were mixed up with bits of later
recollections, where the great fight with the "White Devil's"
brig and the convent life in Samarang occupied the principal
place. At that point she usually dropped the thread of her
narrative, and pulling out the little brass cross, always
suspended round her neck, she contemplated it with superstitious
awe. That superstitious feeling connected with some vague
talismanic properties of the little bit of metal, and the still
more hazy but terrible notion of some bad Djinns and horrible
torments invented, as she thought, for her especial punishment by
the good Mother Superior in case of the loss of the above charm,
were Mrs. Almayer's only theological luggage for the stormy road
of life. Mrs. Almayer had at least something tangible to cling
to, but Nina, brought up under the Protestant wing of the proper
Mrs. Vinck, had not even a little piece of brass to remind her of
past teaching. And listening to the recital of those savage
glories, those barbarous fights and savage feasting, to the story
of deeds valorous, albeit somewhat bloodthirsty, where men of her
mother's race shone far above the Orang Blanda, she felt herself
irresistibly fascinated, and saw with vague surprise the narrow
mantle of civilised morality, in which good-meaning people had
wrapped her young soul, fall away and leave her shivering and
helpless as if on the edge of some deep and unknown abyss.
Strangest of all, this abyss did not frighten her when she was
under the influence of the witch-like being she called her
mother. She seemed to have forgotten in civilised surroundings
her life before the time when Lingard had, so to speak, kidnapped
her from Brow. Since then she had had Christian teaching, social
education, and a good glimpse of civilised life. Unfortunately
her teachers did not understand her nature, and the education
ended in a scene of humiliation, in an outburst of contempt from
white people for her mixed blood. She had tasted the whole
bitterness of it and remembered distinctly that the virtuous Mrs.
Vinck's indignation was not so much directed against the young
man from the bank as against the innocent cause of that young
man's infatuation. And there was also no doubt in her mind that
the principal cause of Mrs. Vinck's indignation was the thought
that such a thing should happen in a white nest, where her
snow-white doves, the two Misses Vinck, had just returned from
Europe, to find shelter under the maternal wing, and there await
the coming of irreproachable men of their destiny. Not even the
thought of the money so painfully scraped together by Almayer,
and so punctually sent for Nina's expenses, could dissuade Mrs.
Vinck from her virtuous resolve. Nina was sent away, and in
truth the girl herself wanted to go, although a little frightened
by the impending change. And now she had lived on the river for
three years with a savage mother and a father walking about
amongst pitfalls, with his head in the clouds, weak, irresolute,
and unhappy. She had lived a life devoid of all the decencies of
civilisation, in miserable domestic conditions; she had breathed
in the atmosphere of sordid plottings for gain, of the no less
disgusting intrigues and crimes for lust or money; and those
things, together with the domestic quarrels, were the only events
of her three years' existence. She did not die from despair and
disgust the first month, as she expected and almost hoped for.
On the contrary, at the end of half a year it had seemed to her
that she had known no other life. Her young mind having been
unskilfully permitted to glance at better things, and then thrown
back again into the hopeless quagmire of barbarism, full of
strong and uncontrolled passions, had lost the power to
discriminate. It seemed to Nina that there was no change and  no
difference. Whether they traded in brick godowns or on the muddy
river bank; whether they reached after much or little; whether
they made love under the shadows of the great trees or in the
shadow of the cathedral on the Singapore promenade; whether they
plotted for their own ends under the protection of laws and
according to the rules of Christian conduct, or whether they
sought the gratification of their desires with the savage cunning
and the unrestrained fierceness of natures as innocent of culture
as their own immense and gloomy forests, Nina saw only the same
manifestations of love and hate and of sordid greed chasing the
uncertain dollar in all its multifarious and vanishing shapes.
To her resolute nature, however, after all these years, the
savage and uncompromising sincerity of purpose shown by her
Malay kinsmen seemed at last preferable to the sleek hypocrisy,
to the polite disguises, to the virtuous pretences of such white
people as she had had the misfortune to come in contact with.
After all it was her life; it was going to be her life, and so
thinking she fell more and more under the influence of her
mother. Seeking, in her ignorance, a better side to that life,
she listened with avidity to the old woman's tales of the
departed glories of the Rajahs, from whose race she had sprung,
and she became gradually more indifferent, more contemptuous of
the white side of her descent represented by a feeble and
traditionless father.

Almayer's difficulties were by no means diminished by the girl's
presence in Sambir. The stir caused by her arrival had died out,
it is true, and Lakamba had not renewed his visits; but about a
year after the departure of the man-of-war boats the nephew of
Abdulla, Syed Reshid, returned from his pilgrimage to Mecca,
rejoicing in a green jacket and the proud title of Hadji. There
was a great letting off of rockets on board the steamer which
brought him in, and a great beating of drums all night in
Abdulla's compound, while the feast of welcome was prolonged far
into the small hours of the morning. Reshid was the favourite
nephew and heir of Abdulla, and that loving uncle, meeting
Almayer one day by the riverside, stopped politely to exchange
civilities and to ask solemnly for an interview. Almayer
suspected some attempt at a swindle, or at any rate something
unpleasant, but of course consented with a great show of
rejoicing. Accordingly the next evening, after sunset, Abdulla
came, accompanied by several other grey-beards and by his nephew.
That young man--of a very rakish and dissipated appearance--
affected the greatest indifference as to the whole of the
proceedings. When the torch-bearers had grouped themselves below
the steps, and the visitors had seated themselves on various lame
chairs, Reshid stood apart in the shadow, examining his
aristocratically small hands with great attention. Almayer,
surprised by the great solemnity of his visitors, perched himself
on the corner of the table with a characteristic want of dignity
quickly noted by the Arabs with grave disapproval. But Abdulla
spoke now, looking straight past Almayer at the red curtain
hanging in the doorway, where a slight tremor disclosed the
presence of women on the other side. He began by neatly
complimenting Almayer upon the long years they had dwelt together
in cordial neighbourhood, and called upon Allah to give him many
more years to gladden the eyes of his friends by his welcome
presence. He made a polite allusion to the great consideration
shown him (Almayer) by the Dutch "Commissie," and drew thence the
flattering inference of Almayer's great importance amongst his
own people. He--Abdulla--was also important amongst all the
Arabs, and his nephew Reshid would be heir of that social
position and of great riches. Now Reshid was a Hadji. He was
possessor of several Malay women, went on Abdulla, but it was
time he had a favourite wife, the first of the four allowed by
the Prophet. And, speaking with well-bred politeness, he
explained further to the dumbfounded Almayer that, if he would
consent to the alliance of his offspring with that true believer
and virtuous man Reshid, she would be the mistress of all the
splendours of Reshid's house, and first wife of the first Arab in
the Islands, when he--Abdulla--was called to the joys of Paradise
by Allah the All-merciful. "You know, Tuan," he said, in
conclusion, "the other women would be her slaves, and Reshid's
house is great. From Bombay he has brought great divans, and
costly carpets, and European furniture. There is also a great
looking-glass in a frame shining like gold. What could a girl
want more?"  And while Almayer looked upon him in silent dismay
Abdulla spoke in a more confidential tone, waving his attendants
away, and finished his speech by pointing out the material
advantages of such an alliance, and offering to settle upon
Almayer three thousand dollars as a sign of his sincere
friendship and the price of the girl.

Poor Almayer was nearly having a fit. Burning with the desire of
taking Abdulla by the throat, he had but to think of his helpless
position in the midst of lawless men to comprehend the necessity
of diplomatic conciliation. He mastered his impulses, and spoke
politely and coldly, saying the girl was young and as the apple
of his eye. Tuan Reshid, a Faithful and a Hadji, would not want
an infidel woman in his harem; and, seeing Abdulla smile
sceptically at that last objection, he remained silent, not
trusting himself to speak more, not daring to refuse point-blank,
nor yet to say anything compromising. Abdulla understood the
meaning of that silence, and rose to take leave with a grave
salaam. He wished his friend Almayer "a thousand years," and
moved down the steps, helped dutifully by Reshid. The torch-
bearers shook their torches, scattering a shower of sparks into
the river, and the cortege moved off, leaving Almayer agitated
but greatly relieved by their departure. He dropped into a chair
and watched the glimmer of the lights amongst the tree trunks
till they disappeared and complete silence succeeded the tramp of
feet and the murmur of voices. He did not move till the curtain
rustled and Nina came out on the verandah and sat in the
rocking-chair, where she used to spend many hours every day. She
gave a slight rocking motion to her seat, leaning back with
half-closed eyes, her long hair shading her face from the smoky
light of the lamp on the table. Almayer looked at her furtively,
but the face was as impassible as ever. She turned her head
slightly towards her father, and, speaking, to his great
surprise, in English, asked--

"Was that Abdulla here?"

"Yes," said Almayer--"just gone."

"And what did he want, father?"

"He wanted to buy you for Reshid," answered Almayer, brutally,
his anger getting the better of him, and looking at the girl as
if in expectation of some outbreak of feeling. But Nina remained
apparently unmoved, gazing dreamily into the black night outside.

"Be careful, Nina," said Almayer, after a short silence and
rising from his chair, "when you go paddling alone into the
creeks in your canoe. That Reshid is a violent scoundrel, and
there is no saying what he may do. Do you hear me?"

She was standing now, ready to go in, one hand grasping the
curtain in the doorway. She turned round, throwing her heavy
tresses back by a sudden gesture.

"Do you think he would dare?" she asked, quickly, and then turned
again to go in, adding in a lower tone, "He would not dare.
Arabs are all cowards."

Almayer looked after her, astonished. He did not seek the repose
of his hammock. He walked the floor absently, sometimes stopping
by the balustrade to think. The lamp went out. The first streak
of dawn broke over the forest; Almayer shivered in the damp air.
"I give it up," he muttered to himself, lying down wearily.
"Damn those women! Well! If the girl did not look as if she
wanted to be kidnapped!"

And he felt a nameless fear creep into his heart, making him
shiver again.

CHAPTER IV.

That year, towards the breaking up of the south-west monsoon,
disquieting rumours reached Sambir. Captain Ford, coming up to
Almayer's house for an evening's chat, brought late numbers of
the Straits Times giving the news of Acheen war and of the
unsuccessful Dutch expedition. The Nakhodas of the rare trading
praus ascending the river paid visits to Lakamba, discussing with
that potentate the unsettled state of affairs, and wagged their
heads gravely over the recital of Orang Blanda exaction,
severity, and general tyranny, as exemplified in the total
stoppage of gunpowder trade and the rigorous visiting of all
suspicious craft trading in the straits of Macassar. Even the
loyal soul of Lakamba was stirred into a state of inward
discontent by the withdrawal of his license for powder and by the
abrupt confiscation of one hundred and fifty barrels of that
commodity by the gunboat Princess Amelia, when, after a hazardous
voyage, it had almost reached the mouth of the river. The
unpleasant news was given him by Reshid, who, after the
unsuccessful issue of his matrimonial projects, had made a long
voyage amongst the islands for trading purposes; had bought the
powder for his friend, and was overhauled and deprived of it on
his return when actually congratulating himself on his acuteness
in avoiding detection. Reshid's wrath was principally directed
against Almayer, whom he suspected of having notified the Dutch
authorities of the desultory warfare carried on by the Arabs and
the Rajah with the up-river Dyak tribes.

To Reshid's great surprise the Rajah received his complaints very
coldly, and showed no signs of vengeful disposition towards the
white man. In truth, Lakamba knew very well that Almayer was
perfectly innocent of any meddling in state affairs; and besides,
his attitude towards that much persecuted individual was wholly
changed in  consequence of a reconciliation effected between him
and his old enemy by Almayer's newly-found friend, Dain Maroola.

Almayer had now a friend. Shortly after Reshid's departure on
his commercial journey, Nina, drifting slowly with the tide in
the canoe on her return home after one of her solitary
excursions, heard in one of the small creeks a splashing, as if
of heavy ropes dropping in the water, and the prolonged song of
Malay seamen when some heavy pulling is to be done. Through the
thick fringe of bushes hiding the mouth of the creek she saw the
tall spars of some European-rigged sailing vessel overtopping the
summits of the Nipa palms. A brig was being hauled out of the
small creek into the main stream. The sun had set, and during
the short moments of twilight Nina saw the brig, aided by the
evening breeze and the flowing tide, head towards Sambir under
her set foresail. The girl turned her canoe out of the main
river into one of the many narrow channels amongst the wooded
islets, and paddled vigorously over the black and sleepy
backwaters towards Sambir. Her canoe brushed the water-palms,
skirted the short spaces of muddy bank where sedate alligators
looked at her with lazy unconcern, and, just as darkness was
setting in, shot out into the broad junction of the two main
branches of the river, where the brig was already at anchor with
sails furled, yards squared, and decks seemingly untenanted by
any human being. Nina had to cross the river and pass pretty
close to the brig in order to reach home on the low promontory
between the two branches of the Pantai. Up both branches, in the
houses built on the banks and over the water, the lights twinkled
already, reflected in the still waters below. The hum of voices,
the occasional cry of a child, the rapid and abruptly interrupted
roll of a wooden drum, together with some distant hailing in the
darkness by the returning fishermen, reached her over the broad
expanse of the river. She hesitated a little before crossing,
the sight of such an unusual object as an European-rigged vessel
causing her some uneasiness, but the river in its wide expansion
was dark enough to render a small canoe invisible. She urged her
small craft with swift strokes of her paddle, kneeling in the
bottom and bending forward to catch any suspicious sound while
she steered towards the little jetty of Lingard and Co., to which
the strong light of the paraffin lamp shining on the whitewashed
verandah of Almayer's bungalow served as a convenient guide. The
jetty itself, under the shadow of the bank overgrown by drooping
bushes, was hidden in darkness. Before even she could see it she
heard the hollow bumping of a large boat against its rotten
posts, and heard also the murmur of whispered conversation in
that boat whose white paint and great dimensions, faintly visible
on nearer approach, made her rightly guess that it belonged to
the brig just anchored. Stopping her course by a rapid motion of
her paddle, with another swift stroke she sent it whirling away
from the wharf and steered for a little rivulet which gave access
to the back courtyard of the house. She landed at the muddy head
of the creek and made her way towards the house over the trodden
grass of the courtyard. To the left, from the cooking shed,
shone a red glare through the banana plantation she skirted, and
the noise of feminine laughter reached her from there in the
silent evening. She rightly judged her mother was not near,
laughter and Mrs. Almayer not being close neighbours. She must
be in the house, thought Nina, as she ran lightly up the inclined
plane of shaky planks leading to the back door of the narrow
passage dividing the house in two. Outside the doorway, in the
black shadow, stood the faithful Ali.

"Who is there?" asked Nina.

"A great Malay man has come," answered Ali, in a tone of
suppressed excitement. "He is a rich man. There are six men
with lances. Real Soldat, you understand. And his dress is very
brave. I have seen his dress. It shines! What jewels! Don't
go there, Mem Nina. Tuan said not; but the old Mem is gone.
Tuan will be angry. Merciful Allah! what jewels that man has
got!"

Nina slipped past the outstretched hand of the slave into the
dark passage where, in the crimson glow of the hanging curtain,
close by its other end, she could see a small dark form crouching
near the wall. Her mother was feasting her eyes and ears with
what was taking place on the front verandah, and Nina approached
to take her share in the rare pleasure of some novelty. She was
met by her mother's extended arm and by a low murmured warning
not to make a noise.

"Have you seen them, mother?" asked Nina, in a breathless
whisper.

Mrs. Almayer turned her face towards the girl, and her sunken
eyes shone strangely in the red half-light of the passage.

"I saw him," she said, in an almost inaudible tone, pressing her
daughter's hand with her bony fingers. "A great Rajah has come
to Sambir--a Son of Heaven," muttered the old woman to herself.
"Go away, girl!"

The two women stood close to the curtain, Nina wishing to
approach the rent in the stuff, and her mother defending the
position with angry obstinacy. On the other side there was a
lull in the conversation, but the breathing of several men, the
occasional light tinkling of some ornaments, the clink of metal
scabbards, or of brass siri-vessels passed from hand to hand, was
audible during the short pause. The women struggled silently,
when there was a shuffling noise and the shadow of Almayer's
burly form fell on the curtain.

The women ceased struggling and remained motionless. Almayer had
stood up to answer his guest, turning his back to the doorway,
unaware of what was going on on the other side. He spoke in a
tone of regretful irritation.

"You have come to the wrong house, Tuan Maroola, if you want to
trade as you say. I was a trader once, not now, whatever you may
have heard about me in Macassar. And if you want anything, you
will not find it here; I have nothing to give, and want nothing
myself. You should go to the Rajah here; you can see in the
daytime his houses across the river, there, where those fires are
burning on the shore. He will help you and trade with you. Or,
better still, go to the Arabs over there," he went on bitterly,
pointing with his hand towards the houses of Sambir. "Abdulla is
the man you want. There is nothing he would not buy, and there
is nothing he would not sell; believe me, I know him well."

He waited for an answer a short time, then added--

"All that I have said is true, and there is nothing more."

Nina, held back by her mother, heard a soft voice reply with a
calm evenness of intonation peculiar to the better class Malays--

"Who would doubt a white Tuan's words? A man seeks his friends
where his heart tells him. Is this not true also? I have come,
although so late, for I have something to say which you may be
glad to hear. To-morrow I will go to the Sultan; a trader wants
the friendship of great men. Then I shall return here to speak
serious words, if Tuan permits. I shall not go to the Arabs;
their lies are very great! What are they? Chelakka!"

Almayer's voice sounded a little more pleasantly in reply.

"Well, as you like. I can hear you to-morrow at any time if you
have anything to say. Bah! After you have seen the Sultan
Lakamba you will not want to return here, Inchi Dain. You will
see. Only mind, I will have nothing to do with Lakamba. You may
tell him so. What is your business with me, after all?"

"To-morrow we talk, Tuan, now I know you," answered the Malay.
"I speak English a little, so we can talk and nobody will
understand, and then--"

He interrupted himself suddenly, asking surprised, "What's that
noise, Tuan?"

Almayer had also heard the increasing noise of the scuffle
recommenced on the women's side of the curtain. Evidently Nina's
strong curiosity was on the point of overcoming Mrs. Almayer's
exalted sense of social proprieties. Hard breathing was
distinctly audible, and the curtain shook during the contest,
which was mainly physical, although Mrs. Almayer's voice was
heard in angry remonstrance with its usual want of strictly
logical reasoning, but with the well-known richness of invective.

"You shameless woman! Are you a slave?" shouted shrilly the
irate matron. "Veil your face, abandoned wretch! You white
snake, I will not let you!"

Almayer's face expressed annoyance and also doubt as to the
advisability of interfering between mother and daughter. He
glanced at his Malay visitor, who was waiting silently for the
end of the uproar in an attitude of amused expectation, and
waving his hand contemptuously he murmured--

"It is nothing. Some women."

The Malay nodded his head gravely, and his face assumed an
expression of serene indifference, a