c 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. "A