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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 indistinct 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.


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