CHAPTER X.
"It has set at last," said Nina to her mother pointing towards
the hills behind which the sun had sunk. "Listen, mother, I am
going now to Bulangi's creek, and if I should never return--"
She interrupted herself, and something like doubt dimmed for a
moment the fire of suppressed exaltation that had glowed in her
eyes and had illuminated the serene impassiveness of her features
with a ray of eager life during all that long day of excitement--
the day of joy and anxiety, of hope and terror, of vague grief
and indistinct delight. While the sun shone with that dazzling
light in which her love was born and grew till it possessed her
whole being, she was kept firm in her unwavering resolve by the
mysterious whisperings of desire which filled her heart with
impatient longing for the darkness that would mean the end of
danger and strife, the beginning of happiness, the fulfilling of
love, the completeness of life. It had set at last! The short
tropical twilight went out before she could draw the long breath
of relief; and now the sudden darkness seemed to be full of
menacing voices calling upon her to rush headlong into the
unknown; to be true to her own impulses, to give herself up to
the passion she had evoked and shared. He was waiting! In the
solitude of the secluded clearing, in the vast silence of the
forest he was waiting alone, a fugitive in fear of his life.
Indifferent to his danger he was waiting for her. It was for her
only that he had come; and now as the time approached when he
should have his reward, she asked herself with dismay what meant
that chilling doubt of her own will and of her own desire? With
an effort she shook off the fear of the passing weakness. He
should have his reward. Her woman's love and her woman's honour
overcame the faltering distrust of that unknown future waiting
for her in the darkness of the river.
"No, you will not return," muttered Mrs. Almayer, prophetically.
"Without you he will not go, and if he remains here--" She waved
her hand towards the lights of "Almayer's Folly," and the
unfinished sentence died out in a threatening murmur.
The two women had met behind the house, and now were walking
slowly together towards the creek where all the canoes were
moored. Arrived at the fringe of bushes they stopped by a common
impulse, and Mrs. Almayer, laying her hand on her daughter's arm,
tried in vain to look close into the girl's averted face. When
she attempted to speak her first words were lost in a stifled sob
that sounded strangely coming from that woman who, of all human
passions, seemed to know only those of anger and hate.
"You are going away to be a great Ranee," she said at last, in a
voice that was steady enough now, "and if you be wise you shall
have much power that will endure many days, and even last into
your old age. What have I been? A slave all my life, and I have
cooked rice for a man who had no courage and no wisdom. Hai! I!
even I, was given in gift by a chief and a warrior to a man that
was neither. Hai! Hai!"
She wailed to herself softly, lamenting the lost possibilities of
murder and mischief that could have fallen to her lot had she
been mated with a congenial spirit. Nina bent down over Mrs.
Almayer's slight form and scanned attentively, under the stars
that had rushed out on the black sky and now hung breathless over
that strange parting, her mother's shrivelled features, and
looked close into the sunken eyes that could see into her own
dark future by the light of a long and a painful experience.
Again she felt herself fascinated, as of old, by her mother's
exalted mood and by the oracular certainty of expression which,
together with her fits of violence, had contributed not a little
to the reputation for witchcraft she enjoyed in the settlement.
"I was a slave, and you shall be a queen," went on Mrs. Almayer,
looking straight before her; "but remember men's strength and
their weakness. Tremble before his anger, so that he may see
your fear in the light of day; but in your heart you may laugh,
for after sunset he is your slave."
"A slave! He! The master of life! You do not know him,
mother."
Mrs. Almayer condescended to laugh contemptuously.
"You speak like a fool of a white woman," she exclaimed. "What
do you know of men's anger and of men's love? Have you watched
the sleep of men weary of dealing death? Have you felt about you
the strong arm that could drive a kriss deep into a beating
heart? Yah! you are a white woman, and ought to pray to a
woman-god!"
"Why do you say this? I have listened to your words so long that
I have forgotten my old life. If I was white would I stand here,
ready to go? Mother, I shall return to the house and look once
more at my father's face."
"No!" said Mrs. Almayer, violently. "No, he sleeps now the sleep
of gin; and if you went back he might awake and see you. No, he
shall never see you. When the terrible old man took you away
from me when you were little, you remember--"
"It was such a long time ago," murmured Nina.
"I remember," went on Mrs. Almayer, fiercely. "I wanted to look
at your face again. He said no! I heard you cry and jumped into
the river. You were his daughter then; you are my daughter now.
Never shall you go back to that house; you shall never cross this
courtyard again. No! no!"
Her voice rose almost to a shout. On the other side of the creek
there was a rustle in the long grass. The two women heard it,
and listened for a while in startled silence. "I shall go," said
Nina, in a cautious but intense whisper. "What is your hate or
your revenge to me?"
She moved towards the house, Mrs. Almayer clinging to her and
trying to pull her back.
"Stop, you shall not go!" she gasped.
Nina pushed away her mother impatiently and gathered up her
skirts for a quick run, but Mrs. Almayer ran forward and turned
round, facing her daughter with outstretched arms.
"If you move another step," she exclaimed, breathing quickly, "I
shall cry out. Do you see those lights in the big house? There
sit two white men, angry because they cannot have the blood of
the man you love. And in those dark houses," she continued, more
calmly as she pointed towards the settlement, "my voice could
wake up men that would lead the Orang Blanda soldiers to him who
is waiting--for you."
She could not see her daughter's face, but the white figure
before her stood silent and irresolute in the darkness. Mrs.
Almayer pursued her advantage.
"Give up your old life! Forget!" she said in entreating tones.
"Forget that you ever looked at a white face; forget their words;
forget their thoughts. They speak lies. And they think lies
because they despise us that are better than they are, but not so
strong. Forget their friendship and their contempt; forget their
many gods. Girl, why do you want to remember the past when there
is a warrior and a chief ready to give many lives--his own life--
for one of your smiles?"
While she spoke she pushed gently her daughter towards the
canoes, hiding her own fear, anxiety, and doubt under the flood
of passionate words that left Nina no time to think and no
opportunity to protest, even if she had wished it. But she did
not wish it now. At the bottom of that passing desire to look
again at her father's face there was no strong affection. She
felt no scruples and no remorse at leaving suddenly that man
whose sentiment towards herself she could not understand, she
could not even see. There was only an instinctive clinging to
old life, to old habits, to old faces; that fear of finality
which lurks in every human breast and prevents so many heroisms
and so many crimes. For years she had stood between her mother
and her father, the one so strong in her weakness, the other so
weak where he could have been strong. Between those two beings
so dissimilar, so antagonistic, she stood with mute heart
wondering and angry at the fact of her own existence. It seemed
so unreasonable, so humiliating to be flung there in that
settlement and to see the days rush by into the past, without a
hope, a desire, or an aim that would justify the life she had to
endure in ever-growing weariness. She had little belief and no
sympathy for her father's dreams; but the savage ravings of her
mother chanced to strike a responsive chord, deep down somewhere
in her despairing heart; and she dreamed dreams of her own with
the persistent absorption of a captive thinking of liberty within
the walls of his prison cell. With the coming of Dain she found
the road to freedom by obeying the voice of the new-born
impulses, and with surprised joy she thought she could read in
his eyes the answer to all the questionings of her heart. She
understood now the reason and the aim of life; and in the
triumphant unveiling of that mystery she threw away disdainfully
her past with its sad thoughts, its bitter feelings, and its
faint affections, now withered and dead in contact with her
fierce passion.
Mrs. Almayer unmoored Nina's own canoe and, straightening herself
painfully, stood, painter in hand, looking at her daughter.
"Quick," she said; "get away before the moon rises, while the
river is dark. I am afraid of Abdulla's slaves. The wretches
prowl in the night often, and might see and follow you. There
are two paddles in the canoe."
Nina approached her mother and hesitatingly touched lightly with
her lips the wrinkled forehead. Mrs. Almayer snorted
contemptuously in protest against that tenderness which she,
nevertheless, feared could be contagious.
"Shall I ever see you again, mother?" murmured Nina.
"No," said Mrs. Almayer, after a short silence. "Why should you
return here where it is my fate to die? You will live far away
in splendour and might. When I hear of white men driven from the
islands, then I shall know that you are alive, and that you
remember my words."
"I shall always remember," returned Nina, earnestly; "but where
is my power, and what can I do?"
"Do not let him look too long in your eyes, nor lay his head on
your knees without reminding him that men should fight before
they rest. And if he lingers, give him his kriss yourself and
bid him go, as the wife of a mighty prince should do when the
enemies are near. Let him slay the white men that come to us to
trade, with prayers on their lips and loaded guns in their hands.
Ah!"--she ended with a sigh--"they are on every sea, and on every
shore; and they are very many!"
She swung the bow of the canoe towards the river, but did not let
go the gunwale, keeping her hand on it in irresolute
thoughtfulness.
Nina put the point of the paddle against the bank, ready to shove
off into the stream.
"What is it, mother?" she asked, in a low voice. "Do you hear
anything?"
"No," said Mrs. Almayer, absently. "Listen, Nina," she
continued, abruptly, after a slight pause, "in after years there
will be other women--"
A stifled cry in the boat interrupted her, and the paddle rattled
in the canoe as it slipped from Nina's hands, which she put out
in a protesting gesture. Mrs. Almayer fell on her knees on the
bank and leaned over the gunwale so as to bring her own face
close to her daughter's.
"There will be other women," she repeated firmly; "I tell you
that, because you are half white, and may forget that he is a
great chief, and that such things must be. Hide your anger, and
do not let him see on your face the pain that will eat your
heart. Meet him with joy in your eyes and wisdom on your lips,
for to you he will turn in sadness or in doubt. As long as he
looks upon many women your power will last, but should there be
one, one only with whom he seems to forget you, then--"
"I could not live," exclaimed Nina, covering her face with both
her hands. "Do not speak so, mother; it could not be."
"Then," went on Mrs. Almayer, steadily, "to that woman, Nina,
show no mercy."
She moved the canoe down towards the stream by the gunwale, and
gripped it with both her hands, the bow pointing into the river.
"Are you crying?" she asked sternly of her daughter, who sat
still with covered face. "Arise, and take your paddle, for he
has waited long enough. And remember, Nina, no mercy; and if you
must strike, strike with a steady hand."
She put out all her strength, and swinging her body over the
water, shot the light craft far into the stream. When she
recovered herself from the effort she tried vainly to catch a
glimpse of the canoe that seemed to have dissolved suddenly into
the white mist trailing over the heated waters of the Pantai.
After listening for a while intently on her knees, Mrs. Almayer
rose with a deep sigh, while two tears wandered slowly down her
withered cheeks. She wiped them off quickly with a wisp of her
grey hair as if ashamed of herself, but could not stifle another
loud sigh, for her heart was heavy and she suffered much, being
unused to tender emotions. This time she fancied she had heard a
faint noise, like the echo of her own sigh, and she stopped,
straining her ears to catch the slightest sound, and peering
apprehensively towards the bushes near her.
"Who is there?" she asked, in an unsteady voice, while her
imagination peopled the solitude of the riverside with ghost-like
forms. "Who is there?" she repeated faintly.
There was no answer: only the voice of the river murmuring in
sad monotone behind the white veil seemed to swell louder for a
moment, to die away again in a soft whisper of eddies washing
against the bank.
Mrs. Almayer shook her head as if in answer to her own thoughts,
and walked quickly away from the bushes, looking to the right and
left watchfully. She went straight towards the cooking-shed,
observing that the embers of the fire there glowed more brightly
than usual, as if somebody had been adding fresh fuel to the
fires during the evening. As she approached, Babalatchi, who had
been squatting in the warm glow, rose and met her in the shadow
outside.
"Is she gone?" asked the anxious statesman, hastily.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Almayer. "What are the white men doing?
When did you leave them?"
"They are sleeping now, I think. May they never wake!" exclaimed
Babalatchi, fervently. "Oh! but they are devils, and made much
talk and trouble over that carcase. The chief threatened me
twice with his hand, and said he would have me tied up to a tree.
Tie me up to a tree! Me!" he repeated, striking his breast
violently.
Mrs. Almayer laughed tauntingly.
"And you salaamed and asked for mercy. Men with arms by their
side acted otherwise when I was young."
"And where are they, the men of your youth? You mad woman!"
retorted Babalatchi, angrily. "Killed by the Dutch. Aha! But I
shall live to deceive them. A man knows when to fight and when
to tell peaceful lies. You would know that if you were not a
woman."
But Mrs. Almayer did not seem to hear him. With bent body and
outstretched arm she appeared to be listening to some noise
behind the shed.
"There are strange sounds," she whispered, with evident alarm.
"I have heard in the air the sounds of grief, as of a sigh and
weeping. That was by the riverside. And now again I heard--"
"Where?" asked Babalatchi, in an altered voice. "What did you
hear?"
"Close here. It was like a breath long drawn. I wish I had
burnt the paper over the body before it was buried."
"Yes," assented Babalatchi. "But the white men had him thrown
into a hole at once. You know he found his death on the river,"
he added cheerfully, "and his ghost may hail the canoes, but
would leave the land alone."
Mrs. Almayer, who had been craning her neck to look round the
corner of the shed, drew back her head.
"There is nobody there," she said, reassured. "Is it not time
for the Rajah war-canoe to go to the clearing?"
"I have been waiting for it here, for I myself must go,"
explained Babalatchi. "I think I will go over and see what makes
them late. When will you come? The Rajah gives you refuge."
"I shall paddle over before the break of day. I cannot leave my
dollars behind," muttered Mrs. Almayer.
They separated. Babalatchi crossed the courtyard towards the
creek to get his canoe, and Mrs. Almayer walked slowly to the
house, ascended the plankway, and passing through the back
verandah entered the passage leading to the front of the house;
but before going in she turned in the doorway and looked back at
the empty and silent courtyard, now lit up by the rays of the
rising moon. No sooner she had disappeared, however, than a
vague shape flitted out from amongst the stalks of the banana
plantation, darted over the moonlit space, and fell in the
darkness at the foot of the verandah. It might have been the
shadow of a driving cloud, so noiseless and rapid was its
passage, but for the trail of disturbed grass, whose feathery
heads trembled and swayed for a long time in the moonlight before
they rested motionless and gleaming, like a design of silver
sprays embroidered on a sombre background.
Mrs. Almayer lighted the cocoanut lamp, and lifting cautiously
the red curtain, gazed upon her husband, shading the light with
her hand.
Almayer, huddled up in the chair, one of his arms hanging down,
the other thrown across the lower part of his face as if to ward
off an invisible enemy, his legs stretched straight out, slept
heavily, unconscious of the unfriendly eyes that looked upon him
in disparaging criticism. At his feet lay the overturned table,
amongst a wreck of crockery and broken bottles. The appearance
as of traces left by a desperate struggle was accentuated by the
chairs, which seemed to have been scattered violently all over
the place, and now lay about the verandah with a lamentable
aspect of inebriety in their helpless attitudes. Only Nina's big
rocking-chair, standing black and motionless on its high runners,
towered above the chaos of demoralised furniture, unflinchingly
dignified and patient, waiting for its burden.
With a last scornful look towards the sleeper, Mrs. Almayer
passed behind the curtain into her own room. A couple of bats,
encouraged by the darkness and the peaceful state of affairs,
resumed their silent and oblique gambols above Almayer's head,
and for a long time the profound quiet of the house was unbroken,
save for the deep breathing of the sleeping man and the faint
tinkle of silver in the hands of the woman preparing for flight.
In the increasing light of the moon that had risen now above the
night mist, the objects on the verandah came out strongly
outlined in black splashes of shadow with all the uncompromising
ugliness of their disorder, and a caricature of the sleeping
Almayer appeared on the dirty whitewash of the wall behind him in
a grotesquely exaggerated detail of attitude and feature enlarged
to a heroic size. The discontented bats departed in quest of
darker places, and a lizard came out in short, nervous rushes,
and, pleased with the white table-cloth, stopped on it in
breathless immobility that would have suggested sudden death had
it not been for the melodious call he exchanged with a less
adventurous friend hiding amongst the lumber in the courtyard.
Then the boards in the passage creaked, the lizard vanished, and
Almayer stirred uneasily with a sigh: slowly, out of the
senseless annihilation of drunken sleep, he was returning,
through the land of dreams, to waking consciousness. Almayer's
head rolled from shoulder to shoulder in the oppression of his
dream; the heavens had descended upon him like a heavy mantle,
and trailed in starred folds far under him. Stars above, stars
all round him; and from the stars under his feet rose a whisper
full of entreaties and tears, and sorrowful faces flitted amongst
the clusters of light filling the infinite space below. How
escape from the importunity of lamentable cries and from the look
of staring, sad eyes in the faces which pressed round him till he
gasped for breath under the crushing weight of worlds that hung
over his aching shoulders? Get away! But how? If he attempted
to move he would step off into nothing, and perish in the
crashing fall of that universe of which he was the only support.
And what were the voices saying? Urging him to move! Why? Move
to destruction! Not likely! The absurdity of the thing filled
him with indignation. He got a firmer foothold and stiffened his
muscles in heroic resolve to carry his burden to all eternity.
And ages passed in the superhuman labour, amidst the rush of
circling worlds; in the plaintive murmur of sorrowful voices
urging him to desist before it was too late--till the mysterious
power that had laid upon him the giant task seemed at last to
seek his destruction. With terror he felt an irresistible hand
shaking him by the shoulder, while the chorus of voices swelled
louder into an agonised prayer to go, go before it is too late.
He felt himself slipping, losing his balance, as something
dragged at his legs, and he fell. With a faint cry he glided out
of the anguish of perishing creation into an imperfect waking
that seemed to be still under the spell of his dream.
"What? What?" he murmured sleepily, without moving or opening
his eyes. His head still felt heavy, and he had not the courage
to raise his eyelids. In his ears there still lingered the sound
of entreating whisper.--"Am I awake?--Why do I hear the voices?"
he argued to himself, hazily.--"I cannot get rid of the horrible
nightmare yet.--I have been very drunk.--What is that shaking me?
I am dreaming yet--I must open my eyes and be done with it. I am
only half awake, it is evident."
He made an effort to shake off his stupor and saw a face close to
his, glaring at him with staring eyeballs. He closed his eyes
again in amazed horror and sat up straight in the chair,
trembling in every limb. What was this apparition?--His own
fancy, no doubt.--His nerves had been much tried the day
before--and then the drink! He would not see it again if he had
the courage to look.--He would look directly.--Get a little
steadier first.-- So.--Now.
He looked. The figure of a woman standing in the steely light,
her hands stretched forth in a suppliant gesture, confronted him
from the far-off end of the verandah; and in the space between
him and the obstinate phantom floated the murmur of words that
fell on his ears in a jumble of torturing sentences, the meaning
of which escaped the utmost efforts of his brain. Who spoke the
Malay words? Who ran away? Why too late--and too late for what?
What meant those words of hate and love mixed so strangely
together, the ever-recurring names falling on his ears again and
again--Nina, Dain; Dain, Nina? Dain was dead, and Nina was
sleeping, unaware of the terrible experience through which he was
now passing. Was he going to be tormented for ever, sleeping or
waking, and have no peace either night or day? What was the
meaning of this?
He shouted the last words aloud. The shadowy woman seemed to
shrink and recede a little from him towards the doorway, and
there was a shriek. Exasperated by the incomprehensible nature
of his torment, Almayer made a rush upon the apparition, which
eluded his grasp, and he brought up heavily against the wall.
Quick as lightning he turned round and pursued fiercely the
mysterious figure fleeing from him with piercing shrieks that
were like fuel to the flames of his anger. Over the furniture,
round the overturned table, and now he had it cornered behind
Nina's chair. To the left, to the right they dodged, the chair
rocking madly between them, she sending out shriek after shriek
at every feint, and he growling meaningless curses through his
hard set teeth. "Oh! the fiendish noise that split his head and
seemed to choke his breath.--It would kill him.--It must be
stopped!" An insane desire to crush that yelling thing induced
him to cast himself recklessly over the chair with a desperate
grab, and they came down together in a cloud of dust amongst the
splintered wood. The last shriek died out under him in a faint
gurgle, and he had secured the relief of absolute silence.
He looked at the woman's face under him. A real woman! He knew
her. By all that is wonderful! Taminah! He jumped up ashamed
of his fury and stood perplexed, wiping his forehead. The girl
struggled to a kneeling posture and embraced his legs in a
frenzied prayer for mercy.
"Don't be afraid," he said, raising her. "I shall not hurt you.
Why do you come to my house in the night? And if you had to
come, why not go behind the curtain where the women sleep?"
"The place behind the curtain is empty," gasped Taminah, catching
her breath between the words. "There are no women in your house
any more, Tuan. I saw the old Mem go away before I tried to wake
you. I did not want your women, I wanted you."
"Old Mem!" repeated Almayer. "Do you mean my wife?"
She nodded her head.
"But of my daughter you are not afraid?" said Almayer.
"Have you not heard me?" she exclaimed. "Have I not spoken for a
long time when you lay there with eyes half open? She is gone
too."
"I was asleep. Can you not tell when a man is sleeping and when
awake?"
"Sometimes," answered Taminah in a low voice; "sometimes the
spirit lingers close to a sleeping body and may hear. I spoke a
long time before I touched you, and I spoke softly for fear it
would depart at a sudden noise and leave you sleeping for ever.
I took you by the shoulder only when you began to mutter words I
could not understand. Have you not heard, then, and do you know
nothing?"
"Nothing of what you said. What is it? Tell again if you want
me to know."
He took her by the shoulder and led her unresisting to the front
of the verandah into a stronger light. She wrung her hands with
such an appearance of grief that he began to be alarmed.
"Speak," he said. "You made noise enough to wake even dead men.
And yet nobody living came," he added to himself in an uneasy
whisper. "Are you mute? Speak!" he repeated.
In a rush of words which broke out after a short struggle from
her trembling lips she told him the tale of Nina's love and her
own jealousy. Several times he looked angrily into her face and
told her to be silent; but he could not stop the sounds that
seemed to him to run out in a hot stream, swirl about his feet,
and rise in scalding waves about him, higher, higher, drowning
his heart, touching his lips with a feel of molten lead, blotting
out his sight in scorching vapour, closing over his head,
merciless and deadly. When she spoke of the deception as to
Dain's death of which he had been the victim only that day, he
glanced again at her with terrible eyes, and made her falter for
a second, but he turned away directly, and his face suddenly lost
all expression in a stony stare far away over the river. Ah! the
river! His old friend and his old enemy, speaking always with
the same voice as he runs from year to year bringing fortune or
disappointment happiness or pain, upon the same varying but
unchanged surface of glancing currents and swirling eddies. For
many years he had listened to the passionless and soothing murmur
that sometimes was the song of hope, at times the song of
triumph, of encouragement; more often the whisper of consolation
that spoke of better days to come. For so many years! So many
years! And now to the accompaniment of that murmur he listened
to the slow and painful beating of his heart. He listened
attentively, wondering at the regularity of its beats. He began
to count mechanically. One, two. Why count? At the next beat
it must stop. No heart could suffer so and beat so steadily for
long. Those regular strokes as of a muffled hammer that rang in
his ears must stop soon. Still beating unceasing and cruel. No
man can bear this; and is this the last, or will the next one be
the last?--How much longer? O God! how much longer? His hand
weighed heavier unconsciously on the girl's shoulder, and she
spoke the last words of her story crouching at his feet with
tears of pain and shame and anger. Was her revenge to fail her?
This white man was like a senseless stone. Too late! Too late!
"And you saw her go?" Almayer's voice sounded harshly above her
head.
"Did I not tell you?" she sobbed, trying to wriggle gently out
from under his grip. "Did I not tell you that I saw the
witchwoman push the canoe? I lay hidden in the grass and heard
all the words. She that we used to call the white Mem wanted to
return to look at your face, but the witchwoman forbade her,
and--"
She sank lower yet on her elbow, turning half round under the
downward push of the heavy hand, her face lifted up to him with
spiteful eyes.
"And she obeyed," she shouted out in a half-laugh, half-cry of
pain. "Let me go, Tuan. Why are you angry with me? Hasten, or
you shall be too late to show your anger to the deceitful woman."
Almayer dragged her up to her feet and looked close into her face
while she struggled, turning her head away from his wild stare.
"Who sent you here to torment me?" he asked, violently. "I do
not believe you. You lie."
He straightened his arm suddenly and flung her across the
verandah towards the doorway, where she lay immobile and silent,
as if she had left her life in his grasp, a dark heap, without a
sound or a stir.
"Oh! Nina!" whispered Almayer, in a voice in which reproach and
love spoke together in pained tenderness. "Oh! Nina! I do not
believe."
A light draught from the river ran over the courtyard in a wave
of bowing grass and, entering the verandah, touched Almayer's
forehead with its cool breath, in a caress of infinite pity. The
curtain in the women's doorway blew out and instantly collapsed
with startling helplessness. He stared at the fluttering stuff.
"Nina!" cried Almayer. "Where are you, Nina?"
The wind passed out of the empty house in a tremulous sigh, and
all was still.
Almayer hid his face in his hands as if to shut out a loathsome
sight. When, hearing a slight rustle, he uncovered his eyes, the
dark heap by the door was gone.
