Complete Works

red curtain.  The women’s room opened into that passage, which led to the back courtyard and to the cooking shed.  In one of the side walls there was a doorway.  Half obliterated words — ”Office: Lingard and Co.” — were still legible on the dusty door, which looked as if it had not been opened for a very long time.  Close to the other side wall stood a bent-wood rocking-chair, and by the table and about the verandah four wooden armchairs straggled forlornly, as if ashamed of their shabby surroundings.  A heap of common mats lay in one corner, with an old hammock slung diagonally above.  In the other corner, his head wrapped in a piece of red calico, huddled into a shapeless heap, slept a Malay, one of Almayer’s domestic slaves — ”my own people,” he used to call them.  A numerous and representative assembly of moths were holding high revels round the lamp to the spirited music of swarming mosquitoes.  Under the palm-leaf thatch lizards raced on the beams calling softly.  A monkey, chained to one of the verandah supports — retired for the night under the eaves — peered and grinned at Almayer, as it swung to one of the bamboo roof sticks and caused a shower of dust and bits of dried leaves to settle on the shabby table.  The floor was uneven, with many withered plants and dried earth scattered about.  A general air of squalid neglect pervaded the place.  Great red stains on the floor and walls testified to frequent and indiscriminate betel-nut chewing.  The light breeze from the river swayed gently the tattered blinds, sending from the woods opposite a faint and sickly perfume as of decaying flowers.
    Under Almayer’s heavy tread the boards of the verandah creaked loudly.  The sleeper in the corner moved uneasily, muttering indistinct words.  There was a slight rustle behind the curtained doorway, and a soft voice asked in Malay, “Is it you, father?”
    “Yes, Nina.  I am hungry.  Is everybody asleep in this house?”
    Almayer spoke jovially and dropped with a contented sigh into the armchair nearest to the table.  Nina Almayer came through the curtained doorway followed by an old Malay woman, who busied herself in setting upon the table a plateful of rice and fish, a jar of water, and a bottle half full of genever.  After carefully placing before her master a cracked glass tumbler and a tin spoon she went away noiselessly.  Nina stood by the table, one hand lightly resting on its edge, the other hanging listlessly by her side.  Her face turned towards the outer darkness, through which her dreamy eyes seemed to see some entrancing picture, wore a look of impatient expectancy.  She was tall for a half-caste, with the correct profile of the father, modified and strengthened by the squareness of the lower part of the face inherited from her maternal ancestors — the Sulu pirates.  Her firm mouth, with the lips slightly parted and disclosing a gleam of white teeth, put a vague suggestion of ferocity into the impatient expression of her features.  And yet her dark and perfect eyes had all the tender softness of expression common to Malay women, but with a gleam of superior intelligence; they looked gravely, wide open and steady, as if facing something invisible to all other eyes, while she stood there all in white, straight, flexible, graceful, unconscious of herself, her low but broad forehead crowned with a shining mass of long black hair that fell in heavy tresses over her shoulders, and made her pale olive complexion look paler still by the contrast of its coal-black hue.
    Almayer attacked his rice greedily, but after a few mouthfuls he paused, spoon in hand, and looked at his daughter curiously.
    “Did you hear a boat pass about half an hour ago Nina?” he asked.
    The girl gave him a quick glance, and moving away from the light stood with her back to the table.
    “No,” she said, slowly.
    “There was a boat.  At last!  Dain himself; and he went on to Lakamba.  I know it, for he told me so.  I spoke to him, but he would not come here to-night.  Will come to-morrow, he said.”
    He swallowed another spoonful, then said —
    “I am almost happy to-night, Nina.  I can see the end of a long road, and it leads us away from this miserable swamp.  We shall soon get away from here, I and you, my dear little girl, and then — ”
    He rose from the table and stood looking fixedly before him as if contemplating some enchanting vision.
    “And then,” he went on,