respect. She the first--the only one! But in the instant she
saw the son of that other woman she felt herself removed into the

cold, the darkness, the silence of a solitude impenetrable and
immense--very far from him, beyond the possibility of any hope,

into an infinity of wrongs without any redress.
She stride的过去式">strode nearer to Joanna. She felt towards that woman anger,

envy, jealousy. Before her she felt humiliated and enraged. She
seized the hangingsleeve of the jacket in which Joanna was

hiding her face and tore it out of her hands, exclaiming loudly--
"Let me see the face of her before whom I am only a servant and a

slave. Ya-wa! I see you!"
Her unexpected shout seemed to fill the sunlit space of cleared

grounds, rise high and run on far into the land over the
unstirring tree-tops of the forests. She stood in sudden

stillness, looking at Joanna with surprised contempt.
"A Sirani woman!" she said, slowly, in a tone of wonder.

Joanna rushed at Willems--clung to him, shrieking: "Defend me,
Peter! Defend me from that woman!"

"Be quiet. There is no danger," muttered Willems, thickly.
Aissa looked at them with scorn. "God is great! I sit in the

dust at your feet," she exclaimed jeeringly, joining her hands
above her head in a gesture of mock humility. "Before you I am

as nothing." She turned to Willems fiercely, opening her arms
wide. "What have you made of me?" she cried, "you lying child of

an accursed mother! What have you made of me? The slave of a
slave. Don't speak! Your words are worse than the poison of

snakes. A Sirani woman. A woman of a people despised by all."
She pointed her finger at Joanna, stepped back, and began to

laugh.
"Make her stop, Peter!" screamed Joanna. "That heathen woman.

Heathen! Heathen! Beat her, Peter."
Willems caught sight of the revolver which Aissa had laid on the

seat near the child. He spoke in Dutch to his wife, without
moving his head.

"Snatch the boy--and my revolver there. See. Run to the boat.
I will keep her back. Now's the time."

Aissa came nearer. She stared at Joanna, while between the short
gusts of broken laughter she raved, fumbling distractedly at the

buckle of her belt.
"To her! To her--the mother of him who will speak of your

wisdom, of your courage. All to her. I have nothing. Nothing.
Take, take."

She tore the belt off and threw it at Joanna's feet. She flung
down with haste the armlets, the gold pins, the flowers; and the

long hair, released, fell scattered over her shoulders, framing
in its blackness the wild exaltation of her face.

"Drive her off, Peter. Drive off the heathen savage," persisted
Joanna. She seemed to have lost her head altogether. She

stamped, clinging to Willems' arm with both her hands.
"Look," cried Aissa. "Look at the mother of your son! She is

afraid. Why does she not go from before my face? Look at her.
She is ugly."

Joanna seemed to understand the scornful tone of the words. As
Aissa stepped back again nearer to the tree she let go her

husband's arm, rushed at her madly, slapped her face, then,
swerving round, darted at the child who, unnoticed, had been

wailing for some time, and, snatching him up, flew down to the
waterside, sending shriek after shriek in an access of insane

terror.
Willems made for the revolver. Aissa passed swiftly, giving him

an unexpected push that sent him staggering away from the tree.
She caught up the weapon, put it behind her back, and cried--

"You shall not have it. Go after her. Go to meet danger. . . .
Go to meet death. . . . Go unarmed. . . . Go with empty hands

and sweet words . . . as you came to me. . . . Go helpless and
lie to the forests, to the sea . . . to the death that waits for

you. . . ."
She ceased as if strangled. She saw in the horror of the passing

seconds the half-naked, wild-looking man before her; she heard
the faint shrillness of Joanna's insaneshrieks for help

somewhere down by the riverside. The sunlight streamed on her,
on him, on the mute land, on the murmuring river--the gentle

brilliance of a serene morning that, to her, seemed traversed by
ghastly flashes of uncertain darkness. Hate filled the world,

filled the space between them--the hate of race, the hate of
hopeless diversity, the hate of blood; the hate against the man

born in the land of lies and of evil from which nothing but
misfortune comes to those who are not white. And as she stood,

maddened, she heard a whisper near her, the whisper of the dead
Omar's voice saying in her ear: "Kill! Kill!"

She cried, seeing him move--
"Do not come near me . . . or you die now! Go while I remember

yet . . . remember. . . ."
Willems pulled himself together for a struggle. He dared not go

unarmed. He made a long stride, and saw her raise the revolver.
He noticed that she had not cocked it, and said to himself that,

even if she did fire, she would surely miss. Go too high; it was
a stiff trigger. He made a step nearer--saw the long barrel

moving unsteadily at the end of her extended arm. He thought:
This is my time . . . He bent his knees slightly, throwing his

body forward, and took off with a long bound for a tearing rush.
He saw a burst of red flame before his eyes, and was deafened by

a report that seemed to him louder than a clap of thunder.
Something stopped him short, and he stood aspiring in his

nostrils the acrid smell of the blue smoke that drifted from
before his eyes like an immense cloud. . . . Missed, by Heaven!

. . . Thought so! . . . And he saw her very far off, throwing
her arms up, while the revolver, very small, lay on the ground

between them. . . . Missed! . . . He would go and pick it up
now. Never before did he understand, as in that second, the joy,

the triumphant delight of sunshine and of life. His mouth was
full of something salt and warm. He tried to cough; spat out. . .

. Who shrieks: In the name of God, he dies!--he dies!--Who
dies?--Must pick up--Night!--What? . . . Night already. . . .

* * * * * *
Many years afterwards Almayer was telling the story of the great

revolution in Sambir to a chance visitor from Europe. He was a
Roumanian, half naturalist, half orchid-hunter for commercial

purposes, who used to declare to everybody, in the first five
minutes of acquaintance, his intention of writing a scientific

book about tropical countries. On his way to the interior he had
quartered himself upon Almayer. He was a man of some education,

but he drank his gin neat, or only, at most, would squeeze the
juice of half a small lime into the raw spirit. He said it was

good for his health, and, with that medicine before him, he would
describe to the surprised Almayer the wonders of European

capitals; while Almayer, in exchange, bored him by expounding,
with gusto, his unfavourable opinions of Sambir's social and

political life. They talked far into the night, across the deal
table on the verandah, while, between them, clear-winged, small,

and flabby insects, dissatisfied with moonlight, streamed in and
perished in thousands round the smoky light of the evil-smelling

lamp.
Almayer, his face flushed, was saying--

"Of course, I did not see that. I told you I was stuck in the
creek on account of father's--Captain Lingard's--susceptible