body. The whole crew of the steamer, with the exception of
firemen and engineers, rushed up the jetty past the thoughtful

Almayer and vanished from my sight. The white fog swallowed them
up; and again there was a deep silence that seemed to extend for

miles up and down the stream. Still taciturn, Almayer started to
climb on board, and I went down from the bridge to meet him on

the after deck.
"Would you mind telling the captain that I want to see him very

particularly?" he asked me in a low tone, letting his eyes stray
all over the place.

"Very well. I will go and see."
With the door of his cabin wide open Captain C--, just back from

the bathroom, big and broad-chested, was brushing his thick,
damp, iron-grey hair with two large brushes.

"Mr. Almayer told me he wanted to see you very particularly,
sir."

Saying these words I smiled. I don't know why I smiled except
that it seemed absolutely impossible to mention Almayer's name

without a smile of a sort. It had not to be necessarily a
mirthful smile. Turning his head towards me Captain C-- smiled

too, rather joylessly.
"The pony got away from him--eh?"

"Yes sir. He did."
"Where is he?"

"Goodness only knows."
"No. I mean Almayer. Let him come along."

The captain's stateroom opening straight on deck under the
bridge, I had only to beckon from the doorway to Almayer, who had

remained aft, with downcast eyes, on the very spot where I had
left him. He strolled up moodily, shook hands and at once asked

permission to shut the cabin door.
"I have a pretty story to tell you," were the last words I heard.

The bitterness of tone was remarkable.
I went away from the door, of course. For the moment I had no

crew on board; only the Chinaman carpenter, with a canvas bag
hung round his neck and a hammer in his hand, roamed about the

empty decks knocking out the wedges of the hatches and dropping
them into the bag conscientiously. Having nothing to do I joined

our two engineers at the door of the engine-room. It was near
breakfast time.

"He's turned up early, hasn't he?" commented the second engineer,
and smiled indifferently. He was an abstemious man with a good

digestion and a placid, reasonable view of life even when hungry.
"Yes," I said. "Shut up with the old man. Some very particular

business."
"He will spin him a damned endless yarn," observed the chief

engineer.
He smiled rather sourly. He was dyspeptic and suffered from

gnawing hunger in the morning. The second smiled broadly, a
smile that made two vertical folds on his shaven cheeks. And I

smiled too, but I was not exactly amused. In that man, whose
name apparently could not be uttered anywhere in the Malay

Archipelago without a smile, there was nothing amusing whatever.
That morning he breakfasted with us silently, looking mostly into

his cup. I informed him that my men came upon his pony capering
in the fog on the very brink of the eight-foot-deep well in which

he kept his store of guttah. The cover was off with no one near
by, and the whole of my crew just missed going heels over head

into that beastly hole. Jurumudi Itam, our best quartermaster,
deft at fine needlework, he who mended the ship's flags and sewed

buttons on our coats, was disabled by a kick on the shoulder.
Both remorse and gratitude seemed foreign to Almayer's character.

He mumbled:
"Do you mean that pirate fellow?"

"What pirate fellow? The man has been in the ship eleven years,"
I said indignantly.

"It's his looks," Almayer muttered for all apology.
The sun had eaten up the fog. From where we sat under the after

awning we could see in the distance the pony tied up in front of
Almayer's house, to a post of the verandah. We were silent for a

long time. All at once Almayer, alluding evidently to the
subject of his conversation in the captain's cabin, exclaimed

anxiously across the table:
"I really don't know what I can do now!"

Captain C-- only raised his eyebrows at him, and got up from his
chair. We dispersed to our duties, but Almayer, half dressed as

he was in his cretonne pyjamas and the thin cotton singlet,
remained on board, lingering near the gangway as though he could

not make up his mind whether to go home or stay with us for good.
Our Chinamen boys gave him side glances as they went to and fro;

and Ah Sing, our young chief steward, the handsomest and most
sympathetic of Chinamen, catching my eye, nodded knowingly at his

burly back. In the course of the morning I approached him for a
moment.

"Well, Mr. Almayer," I addressed him easily, "you haven't started
on your letters yet."

We had brought him his mail and he had held the bundle in his
hand ever since we got up from breakfast. He glanced at it when

I spoke and, for a moment, it looked as if he were on the point
of opening his fingers and letting the whole lot fall overboard.

I believe he was tempted to do so. I shall never forget that man
afraid of his letters.

"Have you been long out from Europe?" he asked me.
"Not very. Not quite eight months," I told him. "I left a ship

in Samarang with a hurt back and have been in the hospital in
Singapore some weeks."

He sighed.
"Trade is very bad here."

"Indeed!"
"Hopeless!. . .See these geese?"

With the hand holding the letters he pointed out to me what
resembled a patch of snow creeping and swaying across the distant

part of his compound. It disappeared behind some bushes.
"The only geese on the East Coast," Almayer informed me in a

perfunctory mutter without a spark of faith, hope or pride.
Thereupon, with the same absence of any sort of sustaining spirit

he declared his intention to silence a fat bird and send him on
board for us not later than next day.

I had heard of these largesses before. He conferred a goose as
if it were a sort of Court decoration given only to the tried

friends of the house. I had expected more pomp in the ceremony.
The gift had surely its special quality, multiple and rare. From

the only flock on the East Coast! He did not make half enough of
it. That man did not understand his opportunities. However, I

thanked him at some length.
"You see," he interrupted abruptly in a very peculiar tone, "the

worst of this country is that one is not able to realise. . .it's
impossible to realise. . ." His voice sank into a languid

mutter. "And when one has very large interests. . .very
important interests. . ." he finished faintly. . ."up the river."

We looked at each other. He astonished me by giving a start and
making a very queer grimace.

"Well, I must be off," he burst out hurriedly. "So long!"
At the moment of stepping over the gangway he checked himself

though, to give me a mumbled invitation to dine at his house that
evening with my captain, an invitation which I accepted. I don't

think it could have been possible for me to refuse.
I like the worthy folk who will talk to you of the exercise of

free will "at any rate for practical purposes." Free, is it?
For practical purposes! Bosh! How could I have refused to dine

with that man? I did not refuse simply because I could not
refuse. Curiosity, a healthy desire for a change of cooking,