ever lied to him. He would believe. I don't know . . . Perhaps
he won't. . . . "I must do it. Must!" he argued aloud to himself.

For a long time he stood still, looking before him with an intense gaze,
a gaze rapt and immobile, that seemed to watch the minute quivering of a
delicate balance, coming to a rest.

To the left of him, in the whitewashed wall of the house that formed
the back of the verandah, there was a closed door. Black letters were
painted on it proclaiming the fact that behind that door there was the
office of Lingard & Co. The interior had been furnished by Lingard when
he had built the house for his adopted daughter and her husband, and it
had been furnished with reckless prodigality. There was an office desk,
a revolving chair, bookshelves, a safe: all to humour the weakness of
Almayer, who thought all those paraphernalia necessary to successful
trading. Lingard had laughed, but had taken immense trouble to get the
things. It pleased him to make his protege, his adopted son-in-law,
happy. It had been the sensation of Sambir some five years ago. While
the things were being landed, the whole settlement literally lived on
the river bank in front of the Rajah Laut's house, to look, to wonder,
to admire. . . . What a big meza, with many boxes fitted all over it and
under it! What did the white man do with such a table? And look, look, O
Brothers! There is a green square box, with a gold plate on it, a box
so heavy that those twenty men cannot drag it up the bank. Let us go,
brothers, and help pull at the ropes, and perchance we may see what's
inside. Treasure, no doubt. Gold is heavy and hard to hold, O Brothers!
Let us go and earn a recompense from the fierce Rajah of the Sea who
shouts over there, with a red face. See! There is a man carrying a pile
of books from the boat! What a number of books. What were they for?
. . . And an old invalided jurumudi, who had travelled over many seas and
had heard holy men speak in far-off countries, explained to a small knot
of unsophisticated citizens of Sambir that those books were books of
magic--of magic that guides the white men's ships over the seas, that
gives them their wicked wisdom and their strength; of magic that makes
them great, powerful, and irresistible while they live, and--praise be
to Allah!--the victims of Satan, the slaves of Jehannum when they die.

And when he saw the room furnished, Almayer had felt proud. In his
exultation of an empty-headed