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.
CHAPTER FIVE
“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. Hai--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. Hai! 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, disparagingly. “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.
“Hai! 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 Aissa:--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. Aissa, 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 Aissa, 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 Aeneas 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 Aissa 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 Aissa, 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. Aissa, 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 Aissa’s eyes, often sat again by
the fire, in a long and deep meditation. Aissa 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 Aissa 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. Hai! 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.
CHAPTER SIX
“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
appearance of the man with a red and white face. These manifestations
of childish disgust and fear stung Willems 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, overturned 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 solitary 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 upward 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.
CHAPTER SEVEN
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 Aissa. 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. Backwards 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 Aissa. 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 Aissa’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 expression 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 Aissa’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.