ogether, tete
a tete and, I suppose, in dead silence, one with his air of being no
longer interested in this world and the other raising his eyes now and
then with intense dislike.

It was clear that in those days Willems lived on Almayer's charity. Yet
on returning two months later to Sambir I heard that he had gone on an
expedition up the river in charge of a steam-launch belonging to the
Arabs, to make some discovery or other. On account of the strange
reluctance that everyone manifested to talk about Willems it was
impossible for me to get at the rights of that transaction. Moreover, I
was a newcomer, the youngest of the company, and, I suspect, not judged
quite fit as yet for a full confidence. I was not much concerned about
that exclusion. The faint suggestion of plots and mysteries pertaining
to all matters touching Almayer's affairs amused me vastly. Almayer was
obviously very much affected. I believe he missed Willems immensely. He
wore an air of sinister preoccupation and talked confidentially with
my captain. I could catch only snatches of mumbled sentences. Then one
morning as I came along the deck to take my place at the breakfast table
Almayer checked himself in his low-toned discourse. My captain's face
was perfectly impenetrable. There was a moment of profound silence and
then as if unable to contain himself Almayer burst out in a loud vicious
tone:

"One thing's certain; if he finds anything worth having up there they
will poison him like a dog."

Disconnected though it was, that phrase, as food for thought, was
distinctly worth hearing. We left the river three days afterwards and I
never returned to Sambir; but whatever happened to the protagonist of
my Willems nobody can deny that I have recorded for him a less squalid
fate.

J. C. 1919.

PART I

AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS

CHAPTER ONE

When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar
honesty, it was with an inward assertion of unflinching resolve to fall
back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue as soon as his
little excursion into the wayside quagmires had produced the desired
effect. It was going to be a short episode--a sentence in brackets, so
to speak--in the flowing tale of his life: a thing of no moment, to be
done unwillingly, yet neatly, and to be quickly forgotten. He imagined
that he could go on afterwards looking at the sunshine, enjoying the
shade, breathing in the perfume of flowers in the