uggled under his coat. Ali appeared
with his eyes starting out of his head.

"Master! House burn!" he shouted.

Almayer stood up holding by the table. He could hear the yells of alarm
and surprise in the settlement. Ali wrung his hands, lamenting aloud.

"Stop this noise, fool!" said Almayer, quietly. "Pick up my hammock and
blankets and take them to the other house. Quick, now!"

The smoke burst through the crevices of the door, and Ali, with the
hammock in his arms, cleared in one bound the steps of the verandah.

"It has caught well," muttered Almayer to himself. "Be quiet, Jack," he
added, as the monkey made a frantic effort to escape from its
confinement.

The door split from top to bottom, and a rush of flame and smoke drove
Almayer away from the table to the front rail of the verandah. He held
on there till a great roar overhead assured him that the roof was ablaze.
Then he ran down the steps of the verandah, coughing, half choked with
the smoke that pursued him in bluish wreaths curling about his head.

On the other side of the ditch, separating Almayer's courtyard from the
settlement, a crowd of the inhabitants of Sambir looked at the burning
house of the white man. In the calm air the flames rushed up on high,
coloured pale brick-red, with violet gleams in the strong sunshine. The
thin column of smoke ascended straight and unwavering till it lost itself
in the clear blue of the sky, and, in the great empty space between the
two houses the interested spectators could see the tall figure of the
Tuan Putih, with bowed head and dragging feet, walking slowly away from
the fire towards the shelter of "Almayer's Folly."

In that manner did Almayer move into his new house. He took possession
of the new ruin, and in the undying folly of his heart set himself to
wait in anxiety and pain for that forgetfulness which was so slow to
come. He had done all he could. Every vestige of Nina's existence had
been destroyed; and now with every sunrise he asked himself whether the
longed-for oblivion would come before sunset, whether it would come
before he died? He wanted to live only long enough to be able to forget,
and the tenacity of his memory filled him with dread and horror of death;
for should it come before he could accomplish the purpose of his life he
would have to remember for ever! He also longed for loneliness. He
wanted to be alone. But he was not. In the dim light of the rooms with
their c