Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (13 page)

He looked at his daughter’s attentive face and jumped to his feet upsetting the chair.

“Do you hear?  I had it all there; so; within reach of my hand.”

He paused, trying to keep down his rising anger, and failed.

“Have you no feeling?” he went on.  “Have you lived without hope?”  Nina’s silence exasperated him; his voice rose, although he tried to master his feelings.

“Are you content to live in this misery and die in this wretched hole?  Say something, Nina; have you no sympathy?  Have you no word of comfort for me?  I that loved you so.”

He waited for a while for an answer, and receiving none shook his fist in his daughter’s face.

“I believe you are an idiot!” he yelled.

He looked round for the chair, picked it up and sat down stiffly.  His anger was dead within him, and he felt ashamed of his outburst, yet relieved to think that now he had laid clear before his daughter the inner meaning of his life.  He thought so in perfect good faith, deceived by the emotional estimate of his motives, unable to see the crookedness of his ways, the unreality of his aims, the futility of his regrets.  And now his heart was filled only with a great tenderness and love for his daughter.  He wanted to see her miserable, and to share with her his despair; but he wanted it only as all weak natures long for a companionship in misfortune with beings innocent of its cause.  If she suffered herself she would understand and pity him; but now she would not, or could not, find one word of comfort or love for him in his dire extremity.  The sense of his absolute loneliness came home to his heart with a force that made him shudder.  He swayed and fell forward with his face on the table, his arms stretched straight out, extended and rigid.  Nina made a quick movement towards her father and stood looking at the grey head, on the broad shoulders shaken convulsively by the violence of feelings that found relief at last in sobs and tears.

Nina sighed deeply and moved away from the table.  Her features lost the appearance of stony indifference that had exasperated her father into his outburst of anger and sorrow.  The expression of her face, now unseen by her father, underwent a rapid change.  She had listened to Almayer’s appeal for sympathy, for one word of comfort, apparently indifferent, yet with her breast torn by conflicting impulses raised unexpectedly by events she had not foreseen, or at least did not expect to happen so soon.  With her heart deeply moved by the sight of Almayer’s misery, knowing it in her power to end it with a word, longing to bring peace to that troubled heart, she heard with terror the voice of her overpowering love commanding her to be silent.  And she submitted after a short and fierce struggle of her old self against the new principle of her life.  She wrapped herself up in absolute silence, the only safeguard against some fatal admission.  She could not trust herself to make a sign, to murmur a word for fear of saying too much; and the very violence of the feelings that stirred the innermost recesses of her soul seemed to turn her person into a stone.  The dilated nostrils and the flashing eyes were the only signs of the storm raging within, and those signs of his daughter’s emotion Almayer did not see, for his sight was dimmed by self-pity, by anger, and by despair.

Had Almayer looked at his daughter as she leant over the front rail of the verandah he could have seen the expression of indifference give way to a look of pain, and that again pass away, leaving the glorious beauty of her face marred by deep-drawn lines of watchful anxiety.  The long grass in the neglected courtyard stood very straight before her eyes in the noonday heat.  From the river-bank there were voices and a shuffle of bare feet approaching the house; Babalatchi could be heard giving directions to Almayer’s men, and Mrs. Almayer’s subdued wailing became audible as the small procession bearing the body of the drowned man and headed by that sorrowful matron turned the corner of the house.  Babalatchi had taken the broken anklet off the man’s leg, and now held it in his hand as he moved by the side of the bearers, while Mahmat lingered behind timidly, in the hopes of the promised reward.

“Lay him there,” said Babalatchi to Almayer’s men, pointing to a pile of drying planks in front of the verandah.  “Lay him there.  He was a Kaffir and the son of a dog, and he was the white man’s friend.  He drank the white man’s strong water,” he added, with affected horror.  “That I have seen myself.”

The men stretched out the broken limbs on two planks they had laid level, while Mrs. Almayer covered the body with a piece of white cotton cloth, and after whispering for some time with Babalatchi departed to her domestic duties.  Almayer’s men, after laying down their burden, dispersed themselves in quest of shady spots wherein to idle the day away.  Babalatchi was left alone by the corpse that laid rigid under the white cloth in the bright sunshine.

Nina came down the steps and joined Babalatchi, who put his hand to his forehead, and squatted down with great deference.

“You have a bangle there,” said Nina, looking down on Babalatchi’s upturned face and into his solitary eye.

“I have, Mem Putih,” returned the polite statesman.  Then turning towards Mahmat he beckoned him closer, calling out, “Come here!”

Mahmat approached with some hesitation.  He avoided looking at Nina, but fixed his eyes on Babalatchi.

“Now, listen,” said Babalatchi, sharply.  “The ring and the anklet you have seen, and you know they belonged to Dain the trader, and to no other.  Dain returned last night in a canoe.  He spoke with the Rajah, and in the middle of the night left to cross over to the white man’s house.  There was a great flood, and this morning you found him in the river.”

“By his feet I dragged him out,” muttered Mahmat under his breath.  “Tuan Babalatchi, there will be a recompense!” he exclaimed aloud.

Babalatchi held up the gold bangle before Mahmat’s eyes.  “What I have told you, Mahmat, is for all ears.  What I give you now is for your eyes only.  Take.”

Mahmat took the bangle eagerly and hid it in the folds of his waist-cloth.  “Am I a fool to show this thing in a house with three women in it?” he growled.  “But I shall tell them about Dain the trader, and there will be talk enough.”

He turned and went away, increasing his pace as soon as he was outside Almayer’s compound.

Babalatchi looked after him till he disappeared behind the bushes.  “Have I done well, Mem Putih?” he asked, humbly addressing Nina.

“You have,” answered Nina.  “The ring you may keep yourself.”

Babalatchi touched his lips and forehead, and scrambled to his feet.  He looked at Nina, as if expecting her to say something more, but Nina turned towards the house and went up the steps, motioning him away with her hand.

Babalatchi picked up his staff and prepared to go.  It was very warm, and he did not care for the long pull to the Rajah’s house.  Yet he must go and tell the Rajah — tell of the event; of the change in his plans; of all his suspicions.  He walked to the jetty and began casting off the rattan painter of his canoe.

The broad expanse of the lower reach, with its shimmering surface dotted by the black specks of the fishing canoes, lay before his eyes.  The fishermen seemed to be racing.  Babalatchi paused in his work, and looked on with sudden interest.  The man in the foremost canoe, now within hail of the first houses of Sambir, laid in his paddle and stood up shouting —

“The boats! the boats!  The man-of-war’s boats are coming!  They are here!”

In a moment the settlement was again alive with people rushing to the riverside.  The men began to unfasten their boats, the women stood in groups looking towards the bend down the river.  Above the trees lining the reach a slight puff of smoke appeared like a black stain on the brilliant blue of the cloudless sky.

Babalatchi stood perplexed, the painter in his hand.  He looked down the reach, then up towards Almayer’s house, and back again at the river as if undecided what to do.  At last he made the canoe fast again hastily, and ran towards the house and up the steps of the verandah.

“Tuan!  Tuan!” he called, eagerly.  “The boats are coming.  The man-of-war’s boats.  You had better get ready.  The officers will come here, I know.”

Almayer lifted his head slowly from the table, and looked at him stupidly.

“Mem Putih!” exclaimed Babalatchi to Nina, “look at him.  He does not hear.  You must take care,” he added meaningly.

Nina nodded to him with an uncertain smile, and was going to speak, when a sharp report from the gun mounted in the bow of the steam launch that was just then coming into view arrested the words on her parted lips.  The smile died out, and was replaced by the old look of anxious attention.  From the hills far away the echo came back like a long-drawn and mournful sigh, as if the land had sent it in answer to the voice of its masters.

CHAPTER VIII.

The news as to the identity of the body lying now in Almayer’s compound spread rapidly over the settlement.  During the forenoon most of the inhabitants remained in the long street discussing the mysterious return and the unexpected death of the man who had become known to them as the trader.  His arrival during the north-east monsoon, his long sojourn in their midst, his sudden departure with his brig, and, above all, the mysterious appearance of the body, said to be his, amongst the logs, were subjects to wonder at and to talk over and over again with undiminished interest.  Mahmat moved from house to house and from group to group, always ready to repeat his tale: how he saw the body caught by the sarong in a forked log; how Mrs. Almayer coming, one of the first, at his cries, recognised it, even before he had it hauled on shore; how Babalatchi ordered him to bring it out of the water.  “By the feet I dragged him in, and there was no head,” exclaimed Mahmat, “and how could the white man’s wife know who it was?  She was a witch, it was well known.  And did you see how the white man himself ran away at the sight of the body?  Like a deer he ran!”  And here Mahmat imitated Almayer’s long strides, to the great joy of the beholders.  And for all his trouble he had nothing.  The ring with the green stone Tuan Babalatchi kept.  “Nothing!  Nothing!”  He spat down at his feet in sign of disgust, and left that group to seek further on a fresh audience.

The news spreading to the furthermost parts of the settlement found out Abdulla in the cool recess of his godown, where he sat overlooking his Arab clerks and the men loading and unloading the up-country canoes.  Reshid, who was busy on the jetty, was summoned into his uncle’s presence and found him, as usual, very calm and even cheerful, but very much surprised.  The rumour of the capture or destruction of Dain’s brig had reached the Arab’s ears three days before from the sea-fishermen and through the dwellers on the lower reaches of the river.  It had been passed up-stream from neighbour to neighbour till Bulangi, whose clearing was nearest to the settlement, had brought that news himself to Abdulla whose favour he courted.  But rumour also spoke of a fight and of Dain’s death on board his own vessel.  And now all the settlement talked of Dain’s visit to the Rajah and of his death when crossing the river in the dark to see Almayer.

They could not understand this.  Reshid thought that it was very strange.  He felt uneasy and doubtful.  But Abdulla, after the first shock of surprise, with the old age’s dislike for solving riddles, showed a becoming resignation.  He remarked that the man was dead now at all events, and consequently no more dangerous.  Where was the use to wonder at the decrees of Fate, especially if they were propitious to the True Believers?  And with a pious ejaculation to Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate, Abdulla seemed to regard the incident as closed for the present.

Not so Reshid.  He lingered by his uncle, pulling thoughtfully his neatly trimmed beard.

“There are many lies,” he murmured.  “He has been dead once before, and came to life to die again now.  The Dutch will be here before many days and clamour for the man.  Shall I not believe my eyes sooner than the tongues of women and idle men?”

“They say that the body is being taken to Almayer’s compound,” said Abdulla.  “If you want to go there you must go before the Dutch arrive here.  Go late.  It should not be said that we have been seen inside that man’s enclosure lately.”

Reshid assented to the truth of this last remark and left his uncle’s side.  He leaned against the lintel of the big doorway and looked idly across the courtyard through the open gate on to the main road of the settlement.  It lay empty, straight, and yellow under the flood of light.  In the hot noontide the smooth trunks of palm trees, the outlines of the houses, and away there at the other end of the road the roof of Almayer’s house visible over the bushes on the dark background of forest, seemed to quiver in the heat radiating from the steaming earth.  Swarms of yellow butterflies rose, and settled to rise again in short flights before Reshid’s half-closed eyes.  From under his feet arose the dull hum of insects in the long grass of the courtyard.  He looked on sleepily.

From one of the side paths amongst the houses a woman stepped out on the road, a slight girlish figure walking under the shade of a large tray balanced on its head.  The consciousness of something moving stirred Reshid’s half-sleeping senses into a comparative wakefulness.  He recognised Taminah, Bulangi’s slave-girl, with her tray of cakes for sale — an apparition of daily recurrence and of no importance whatever.  She was going towards Almayer’s house.  She could be made useful.  He roused himself up and ran towards the gate calling out, “Taminah O!”  The girl stopped, hesitated, and came back slowly.

Reshid waited, signing to her impatiently to come nearer.

When near Reshid Taminah stood with downcast eyes.  Reshid looked at her a while before he asked —

“Are you going to Almayer’s house?  They say in the settlement that Dain the trader, he that was found drowned this morning, is lying in the white man’s campong.”

“I have heard this talk,” whispered Taminah; “and this morning by the riverside I saw the body.  Where it is now I do not know.”

“So you have seen it?” asked Reshid, eagerly.  “Is it Dain?  You have seen him many times.  You would know him.”