s the forest. Ali answered to
his call, and, pushing their way through the dense bush, they stepped
into the canoe hidden under the overhanging branches. Dain laid Nina in
the bottom, and sat holding her head on his knees. Almayer and Ali each
took up a paddle. As they were going to push out Ali hissed warningly.
All listened.

In the great stillness before the bursting out of the thunderstorm they
could hear the sound of oars working regularly in their row-locks. The
sound approached steadily, and Dain, looking through the branches, could
see the faint shape of a big white boat. A woman's voice said in a
cautious tone--

"There is the place where you may land white men; a little higher--there!"

The boat was passing them so close in the narrow creek that the blades of
the long oars nearly touched the canoe.

"Way enough! Stand by to jump on shore! He is alone and unarmed," was
the quiet order in a man's voice, and in Dutch.

Somebody else whispered: "I think I can see a glimmer of a fire through
the bush." And then the boat floated past them, disappearing instantly
in the darkness.

"Now," whispered Ali, eagerly, "let us push out and paddle away."

The little canoe swung into the stream, and as it sprung forward in
response to the vigorous dig of the paddles they could hear an angry
shout.

"He is not by the fire. Spread out, men, and search for him!"

Blue lights blazed out in different parts of the clearing, and the shrill
voice of a woman cried in accents of rage and pain--

"Too late! O senseless white men! He has escaped!"

CHAPTER XII.

"That is the place," said Dain, indicating with the blade of his paddle a
small islet about a mile ahead of the canoe--"that is the place where
Babalatchi promised that a boat from the prau would come for me when the
sun is overhead. We will wait for that boat there."

Almayer, who was steering, nodded without speaking, and by a slight sweep
of his paddle laid the head of the canoe in the required direction.

They were just leaving the southern outlet of the Pantai, which lay
behind them in a straight and long vista of water shining between two
walls of thick verdure that ran downwards and towards each other, till at
last they joined and sank together in the far-away distance. The sun,
rising above the calm waters of the Straits, marked its own path by a
streak of light that glided upon the sea and darted up the wide reach of
the river, a hur