taciturn, Almayer started
to climb on board, and I went down from the bridge to meet him on the
after deck.

"Would you mind telling the captain that I want to see him very
particularly?" he asked me in a low tone, letting his eyes stray all
over the place.

"Very well. I will go and see."

With the door of his cabin wide open Captain C--, just back from the
bathroom, big and broad-chested, was brushing his thick, damp, iron-grey
hair with two large brushes.

"Mr. Almayer told me he wanted to see you very particularly, sir."

Saying these words I smiled. I don't know why I smiled except that it
seemed absolutely impossible to mention Almayer's name without a smile
of a sort. It had not to be necessarily a mirthful smile. Turning his
head towards me Captain C-- smiled too, rather joylessly.

"The pony got away from him--eh?"

"Yes sir. He did."

"Where is he?"

"Goodness only knows."

"No. I mean Almayer. Let him come along."

The captain's stateroom opening straight on deck under the bridge, I had
only to beckon from the doorway to Almayer, who had remained aft, with
downcast eyes, on the very spot where I had left him. He strolled up
moodily, shook hands and at once asked permission to shut the cabin
door.

"I have a pretty story to tell you," were the last words I heard. The
bitterness of tone was remarkable.

I went away from the door, of course. For the moment I had no crew on
board; only the Chinaman carpenter, with a canvas bag hung round his
neck and a hammer in his hand, roamed about the empty decks knocking
out the wedges of the hatches and dropping them into the bag
conscientiously. Having nothing to do I joined our two engineers at the
door of the engine-room. It was near breakfast time.

"He's turned up early, hasn't he?" commented the second engineer, and
smiled indifferently. He was an abstemious man with a good digestion and
a placid, reasonable view of life even when hungry.

"Yes," I said. "Shut up with the old man. Some very particular
business."

"He will spin him a damned endless yarn," observed the chief engineer.

He smiled rather sourly. He was dyspeptic and suffered from gnawing
hunger in the morning. The second smiled broadly, a smile that made two
vertical folds on his shaven cheeks. And I smiled too, but I was not
exactly amused. In that man, whose name apparently could not be uttered
anywhere in the Malay Archipelago without a smile, there was nothing
amusing whatever