craft with the tone and appearance of a man in a tremendous
hurry.

"Schooner ahoy! schooner ahoy!" he shouted.

A row of blank faces popped up above the bulwark. After a while a man
with a woolly head of hair said--

"Sir!"

"The mate! the mate! Call him, steward!" said Almayer, excitedly, making
a frantic grab at a rope thrown down to him by somebody.

In less than a minute the mate put his head over. He asked, surprised--

"What can I do for you, Mr. Almayer?"

"Let me have the gig at once, Mr. Swan--at once. I ask in Captain
Lingard's name. I must have it. Matter of life and death."

The mate was impressed by Almayer's agitation

"You shall have it, sir. . . . Man the gig there! Bear a hand, serang!
. . . It's hanging astern, Mr. Almayer," he said, looking down again.
"Get into it, sir. The men are coming down by the painter."

By the time Almayer had clambered over into the stern sheets, four
calashes were in the boat and the oars were being passed over the
taffrail. The mate was looking on. Suddenly he said--

"Is it dangerous work? Do you want any help? I would come . . ."

"Yes, yes!" cried Almayer. "Come along. Don't lose a moment. Go and get
your revolver. Hurry up! hurry up!"

Yet, notwithstanding his feverish anxiety to be off, he lolled back
very quiet and unconcerned till the mate got in and, passing over the
thwarts, sat down by his side. Then he seemed to wake up, and called
out--

"Let go--let go the painter!"

"Let go the painter--the painter!" yelled the bowman, jerking at it.

People on board also shouted "Let go!" to one another, till it occurred
at last to somebody to cast off the rope; and the boat drifted rapidly
away from the schooner in the sudden silencing of all voices.

Almayer steered. The mate sat by his side, pushing the cartridges into
the chambers of his revolver. When the weapon was loaded he asked--

"What is it? Are you after somebody?"

"Yes," said Almayer, curtly, with his eyes fixed ahead on the river. "We
must catch a dangerous man."

"I like a bit of a chase myself," declared the mate, and then,
discouraged by Almayer's aspect of severe thoughtfulness, said nothing
more.

Nearly an hour passed. The calashes stretched forward head first and lay
back with their faces to the sky, alternately, in a regular swing
that sent the boat flying through the water; and the two sitters, very
upright in the stern sheets, swayed rhythmically a little at every
stroke