reater part of his happiness, but he only knew it after its
loss, so unforeseen, so sudden and so cruel.

After his conversation with Almayer he went on board the schooner, sent
Joanna on shore, and shut himself up in his cabin, feeling very unwell.
He made the most of his indisposition to Almayer, who came to visit him
twice a day. It was an excuse for doing nothing just yet. He wanted to
think. He was very angry. Angry with himself, with Willems. Angry at
what Willems had done--and also angry at what he had left undone.
The scoundrel was not complete. The conception was perfect, but
the execution, unaccountably, fell short. Why? He ought to have cut
Almayer's throat and burnt the place to ashes--then cleared out. Got
out of his way; of him, Lingard! Yet he didn't. Was it impudence,
contempt--or what? He felt hurt at the implied disrespect of his
power, and the incomplete rascality of the proceeding disturbed him
exceedingly. There was something short, something wanting, something
that would have given him a free hand in the work of retribution. The
obvious, the right thing to do, was to shoot Willems. Yet how could he?
Had the fellow resisted, showed fight, or ran away; had he shown any
consciousness of harm done, it would have been more possible, more
natural. But no! The fellow actually had sent him a message. Wanted
to see him. What for? The thing could not be explained. An unexampled,
cold-blooded treachery, awful, incomprehensible. Why did he do it? Why?
Why? The old seaman in the stuffy solitude of his little cabin on board
the schooner groaned out many times that question, striking with an open
palm his perplexed forehead.

During his four days of seclusion he had received two messages from the
outer world; from that world of Sambir which had, so suddenly and so
finally, slipped from his grasp. One, a few words from Willems written
on a torn-out page of a small notebook; the other, a communication
from Abdulla caligraphed carefully on a large sheet of flimsy paper
and delivered to him in a green silk wrapper. The first he could not
understand. It said: "Come and see me. I am not afraid. Are you? W."
He tore it up angrily, but before the small bits of dirty paper had the
time to flutter down and settle on the floor, the anger was gone and was
replaced by a sentiment that induced him to go on his knees, pick up
the fragments of the torn message, piece it together on the top of his
chronometer box, and contemplat