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.
