first-class Chinaman that."
"Did you? I had forgotten. Well, that Jim-Eng, he burst through
the bush and fell into my arms, so to speak. He told me,
panting, that they were after him because he wouldn't take off
his hat to the flag. He was not so much scared, but he was very
angry and
indignant. Of course he had to run for it; there were
some fifty men after him--Lakamba's friends--but he was full of
fight. Said he was an Englishman, and would not take off his hat
to any flag but English. I tried to
soothe him while the crowd
was shouting on the other side of the ditch. I told him he must
take one of my canoes and cross the river. Stop on the other
side for a couple of days. He wouldn't. Not he. He was
English, and he would fight the whole lot. Says he: 'They are
only black fellows. We white men,' meaning me and himself, 'can
fight everybody in Sambir.' He was mad with
passion. The crowd
quieted a little, and I thought I could shelter Jim-Eng without
much risk, when all of a sudden I heard Willems' voice. He
shouted to me in English: 'Let four men enter your
compound to
get that Chinaman!' I said nothing. Told Jim-Eng to keep quiet
too. Then after a while Willems shouts again: 'Don't
resist,
Almayer. I give you good advice. I am keeping this crowd back.
Don't
resist them!' That beggar's voice enraged me; I could not
help it. I cried to him: 'You are a liar!' and just then
Jim-Eng, who had flung off his
jacket and had tucked up his
trousers ready for a fight; just then that fellow he snatches the
revolver out of my hand and lets fly at them through the bush.
There was a sharp cry--he must have hit somebody--and a great
yell, and before I could wink twice they were over the ditch and
through the bush and on top of us! Simply rolled over us! There
wasn't the slightest chance to
resist. I was trampled under
foot, Jim-Eng got a dozen gashes about his body, and we were
carried halfway up the yard in the first rush. My eyes and mouth
were full of dust; I was on my back with three or four fellows
sitting on me. I could hear Jim-Eng
trying to shout not very far
from me. Now and then they would throttle him and he would
gurgle. I could hardly breathe myself with two heavy fellows on
my chest. Willems came up
running and ordered them to raise me
up, but to keep good hold. They led me into the verandah. I
looked round, but did not see either Ali or the child. Felt
easier. Struggled a little. . . . Oh, my God!"
Almayer's face was distorted with a passing spasm of rage.
Lingard moved in his chair
slightly. Almayer went on after a
short pause:
"They held me, shouting threats in my face. Willems took down my
hammock and threw it to them. He pulled out the
drawer of this
table, and found there a palm and
needle and some sail-twine. We
were making awnings for your brig, as you had asked me last
voyage before you left. He knew, of course, where to look for
what he wanted. By his orders they laid me out on the floor,
wrapped me in my
hammock, and he started to
stitch me in, as if I
had been a
corpse,
beginning at the feet. While he worked he
laughed wickedly. I called him all the names I could think of.
He told them to put their dirty paws over my mouth and nose. I
was nearly choked. Whenever I moved they punched me in the ribs.
He went on
taking fresh
needlefuls as he wanted them, and working
steadily. Sewed me up to my
throat. Then he rose,
saying, 'That
will do; let go.' That woman had been
standing by; they must
have been reconciled. She clapped her hands. I lay on the floor
like a bale of goods while he stared at me, and the woman
shrieked with delight. Like a bale of goods! There was a grin
on every face, and the verandah was full of them. I wished
myself dead--'pon my word, Captain Lingard, I did! I do now
whenever I think of it!"
Lingard's face expressed
sympatheticindignation. Almayer
dropped his head upon his arms on the table, and spoke in that
position in an in
distinct and muffled voice, without looking up.
"Finally, by his directions, they flung me into the big
rocking-chair. I was sewed in so tight that I was stiff like a
piece of wood. He was giving orders in a very loud voice, and
that man Babalatchi saw that they were executed. They obeyed him
implicitly. Meantime I lay there in the chair like a log, and
that woman capered before me and made faces; snapped her fingers
before my nose. Women are bad!--ain't they? I never saw her
before, as far as I know. Never done anything to her. Yet she
was
perfectly fiendish. Can you understand it? Now and then she
would leave me alone to hang round his neck for
awhile, and then
she would return before my chair and begin her exercises again.
He looked on, indulgent. The perspiration ran down my face, got
into my eyes--my arms were sewn in. I was blinded half the time;
at times I could see better. She drags him before my chair. 'I
am like white women,' she says, her arms round his neck. You
should have seen the faces of the fellows in the verandah! They
were scandalized and
ashamed of themselves to see her behaviour.
Suddenly she asks him, alluding to me: 'When are you going to
kill him?' Imagine how I felt. I must have swooned; I don't
remember exactly. I fancy there was a row; he was angry. When I
got my wits again he was sitting close to me, and she was gone.
I understood he sent her to my wife, who was hiding in the back
room and never came out during this affair. Willems says to
me--I fancy I can hear his voice,
hoarse and dull--he says to me:
'Not a hair of your head shall be touched.' I made no sound.
Then he goes on: 'Please remark that the flag you have
hoisted--which, by the by, is not yours--has been respected.
Tell Captain Lingard so when you do see him. But,' he says, 'you
first fired at the crowd.' 'You are a liar, you blackguard!' I
shouted. He winced, I am sure. It hurt him to see I was not
frightened. 'Anyways,' he says, 'a shot had been fired out of
your
compound and a man was hit. Still, all your property shall
be respected on
account of the Union Jack. Moreover, I have no
quarrel with Captain Lingard, who is the
seniorpartner in this
business. As to you,' he continued, 'you will not forget this
day--not if you live to be a hundred years old--or I don't know
your nature. You will keep the bitter taste of this humiliation
to the last day of your life, and so your kindness to me shall be
repaid. I shall remove all the powder you have. This coast is
under the
protection of the Netherlands, and you have no right to
have any powder. There are the Governor's Orders in Council to
that effect, and you know it. Tell me where the key of the small
storehouse is?' I said not a word, and he waited a little, then
rose,
saying: 'It's your own fault if there is any damage done.'
He ordered Babalatchi to have the lock of the office-room forced,
and went in--rummaged
amongst my
drawers--could not find the key.
Then that woman Aissa asked my wife, and she gave them the key.
After
awhile they tumbled every
barrel into the river.
Eighty-three hundredweight! He superintended himself, and saw
every
barrel roll into the water. There were mutterings.
Babalatchi was angry and tried to expostulate, but he gave him a
good shaking. I must say he was
perfectlyfearless with those
fellows. Then he came back to the verandah, sat down by me
again, and says: 'We found your man Ali with your little daughter
hiding in the bushes up the river. We brought them in. They are
perfectly safe, of course. Let me
congratulate you, Almayer,
upon the cleverness of your child. She recognized me at once,
and cried "pig" as naturally as you would yourself.
Circumstances alter feelings. You should have seen how
frightened your man Ali was. Clapped his hands over her mouth.
I think you spoil her, Almayer. But I am not angry. Really, you
look so
ridiculous in this chair that I can't feel angry.' I
made a
frantic effort to burst out of my
hammock to get at that
scoundrel's
throat, but I only fell off and upset the chair over
myself. He laughed and said only: 'I leave you half of your
revolver cartridges and take half myself; they will fit mine. We
are both white men, and should back each other up. I may want
them.' I shouted at him from under the chair: 'You are a thief,'
but he never looked, and went away, one hand round that woman's
waist, the other on Babalatchi's shoulder, to whom he was
talking--laying down the law about something or other. In less
than five minutes there was nobody inside our fences. After
awhile Ali came to look for me and cut me free. I haven't seen
Willems since--nor anybody else for that matter. I have been
left alone. I offered sixty dollars to the man who had been
wounded, which were accepted. They released Jim-Eng the next
day, when the flag had been hauled down. He sent six cases of
opium to me for safe keeping but has not left his house. I think
he is safe enough now. Everything is very quiet."
Towards the end of his
narrative Almayer lifted his head off the
table, and now sat back in his chair and stared at the bamboo
rafters of the roof above him. Lingard lolled in his seat with
his legs stretched out. In the
peaceful gloom of the verandah,
with its lowered
screens, they heard faint noises from the world
outside in the blazing
sunshine: a hail on the river, the answer
from the shore, the creak of a pulley; sounds short, interrupted,
as if lost suddenly in the
brilliance of
noonday. Lingard got up
slowly, walked to the front rail, and
holding one of the
screens
aside, looked out in silence. Over the water and the empty
courtyard came a
distinct voice from a small
schooner anchored
abreast of the Lingard jetty.
"Serang! Take a pull at the main peak halyards. This gaff is
down on the boom.''
There was a
shrill pipe dying in long-drawn
cadence, the song of
the men swinging on the rope. The voice said
sharply: "That will
do!" Another voice--the serang's probably--shouted: "Ikat!" and
as Lingard dropped the blind and turned away all was silent
again, as if there had been nothing on the other side of the
swaying
screen; nothing but the light,
brilliant, crude, heavy,
lying on a dead land like a pall of fire. Lingard sat down
again, facing Almayer, his elbow on the table, in a thoughtful
attitude.
"Nice little
schooner," muttered Almayer,
wearily. "Did you buy
her?"
"No," answered Lingard. "After I lost the Flash we got to
Palembang in our boats. I chartered her there, for six months.
From young Ford, you know. Belongs to him. He wanted a spell
ashore, so I took
charge myself. Of course all Ford's people on
board. Strangers to me. I had to go to Singapore about the
insurance; then I went to Macassar, of course. Had long
passages. No wind. It was like a curse on me. I had lots of
trouble with old Hudig. That delayed me much."
"Ah! Hudig! Why with Hudig?" asked Almayer, in a perfunctory
manner.
"Oh! about a . . . a woman," mumbled Lingard.
Almayer looked at him with
languid surprise. The old
seaman had
twisted his white beard into a point, and now was busy giving his
moustaches a
fierce curl. His little red eyes--those eyes that
had smarted under the salt sprays of every sea, that had looked
unwinking to windward in the gales of all latitudes--now glared
at Almayer from behind the lowered eyebrows like a pair of
frightened wild beasts crouching in a bush.
"Extraordinary! So like you! What can you have to do with
Hudig's women? The old sinner!" said Almayer, negligently.
"What are you talking about! Wife of a friend of . . . I mean of
a man I know . . ."
"Still, I don't see . . ." interjected Almayer carelessly.
"Of a man you know too. Well. Very well."
"I knew so many men before you made me bury myself in this hole!"
growled Almayer, unamiably. "If she had anything to do with
Hudig--that wife--then she can't be up to much. I would be sorry
for the man," added Almayer, brightening up with the recollection
of the scandalous tittle-tattle of the past, when he was a young
man in the second capital of the Islands--and so well informed,
so well informed. He laughed. Lingard's frown deepened.