speak. I was the only
person who seemed aware of the sound. Willems subsided. Presently he
retired, pointedly unnoticed--into the forest maybe? Its immensity was
there, within three hundred yards of the verandah, ready to swallow up
anything. Almayer conversing with my captain did not stop talking while
he glared angrily at the retreating back. Didn't that fellow bring the
Arabs into the river! Nevertheless Willems turned up next morning on
Almayer's verandah. From the bridge of the steamer I could see plainly
these two, breakfasting together, tete a tete and, I suppose, in dead
silence, one with his air of being no longer interested in this world
and the other raising his eyes now and then with intense dislike.

It was clear that in those days Willems lived on Almayer's charity. Yet
on returning two months later to Sambir I heard that he had gone on an
expedition up the river in charge of a steam-launch belonging to the
Arabs, to make some discovery or other. On account of the strange
reluctance that everyone manifested to talk about Willems it was
impossible for me to get at the rights of that transaction. Moreover, I
was a newcomer, the youngest of the company, and, I suspect, not judged
quite fit as yet for a full confidence. I was not much concerned about
that exclusion. The faint suggestion of plots and mysteries pertaining
to all matters touching Almayer's affairs amused me vastly. Almayer was
obviously very much affected. I believe he missed Willems immensely. He
wore an air of sinister preoccupation and talked confidentially with my
captain. I could catch only snatches of mumbled sentences. Then one
morning as I came along the deck to take my place at the breakfast table
Almayer checked himself in his low-toned discourse. My captain's face
was perfectly impenetrable. There was a moment of profound silence and
then as if unable to contain himself Almayer burst out in a loud vicious
tone:

"One thing's certain; if he finds anything worth having up there they
will poison him like a dog."

Disconnected though it was, that phrase, as food for thought, was
distinctly worth hearing. We left the river three days afterwards and I
never returned to Sambir; but whatever happened to the protagonist of my
Willems nobody can deny that I have recorded for him a less squalid
fate.

J. C.

1919.

NIGGER OF THE 'NARCISSUS'

TO MY READERS IN AMERICA

From that evening when James Wait joined the ship--late f