Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (18 page)

“True!  It is just possible.  But if it isn’t true what can we do?  If we had a dozen boats we could patrol the creeks; and that wouldn’t be much good.  That drunken madman was right; we haven’t enough hold on this coast.  They do what they like.  Are our hammocks slung?”

“Yes, I told the coxswain.  Strange couple over there,” said the sub, with a wave of his hand towards Almayer’s house.

“Hem!  Queer, certainly.  What have you been telling her?  I was attending to the father most of the time.”

“I assure you I have been perfectly civil,” protested the other warmly.

“All right.  Don’t get excited.  She objects to civility, then, from what I understand.  I thought you might have been tender.  You know we are on service.”

“Well, of course.  Never forget that.  Coldly civil.  That’s all.”

They both laughed a little, and not feeling sleepy began to pace the verandah side by side.  The moon rose stealthily above the trees, and suddenly changed the river into a stream of scintillating silver.  The forest came out of the black void and stood sombre and pensive over the sparkling water.  The breeze died away into a breathless calm.

Seamanlike, the two officers tramped measuredly up and down without exchanging a word.  The loose planks rattled rhythmically under their steps with obstrusive dry sound in the perfect silence of the night.  As they were wheeling round again the younger man stood attentive.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“No!” said the other.  “Hear what?”

“I thought I heard a cry.  Ever so faint.  Seemed a woman’s voice.  In that other house.  Ah!  Again!  Hear it?”

“No,” said the lieutenant, after listening awhile.  “You young fellows always hear women’s voices.  If you are going to dream you had better get into your hammock.  Good-night.”

The moon mounted higher, and the warm shadows grew smaller and crept away as if hiding before the cold and cruel light.

CHAPTER X.

“It has set at last,” said Nina to her mother pointing towards the hills behind which the sun had sunk.  “Listen, mother, I am going now to Bulangi’s creek, and if I should never return — ”

She interrupted herself, and something like doubt dimmed for a moment the fire of suppressed exaltation that had glowed in her eyes and had illuminated the serene impassiveness of her features with a ray of eager life during all that long day of excitement — the day of joy and anxiety, of hope and terror, of vague grief and indistinct delight.  While the sun shone with that dazzling light in which her love was born and grew till it possessed her whole being, she was kept firm in her unwavering resolve by the mysterious whisperings of desire which filled her heart with impatient longing for the darkness that would mean the end of danger and strife, the beginning of happiness, the fulfilling of love, the completeness of life.  It had set at last!  The short tropical twilight went out before she could draw the long breath of relief; and now the sudden darkness seemed to be full of menacing voices calling upon her to rush headlong into the unknown; to be true to her own impulses, to give herself up to the passion she had evoked and shared.  He was waiting!  In the solitude of the secluded clearing, in the vast silence of the forest he was waiting alone, a fugitive in fear of his life.  Indifferent to his danger he was waiting for her.  It was for her only that he had come; and now as the time approached when he should have his reward, she asked herself with dismay what meant that chilling doubt of her own will and of her own desire?  With an effort she shook off the fear of the passing weakness.  He should have his reward.  Her woman’s love and her woman’s honour overcame the faltering distrust of that unknown future waiting for her in the darkness of the river.

“No, you will not return,” muttered Mrs. Almayer, prophetically.

“Without you he will not go, and if he remains here — ”  She waved her hand towards the lights of “Almayer’s Folly,” and the unfinished sentence died out in a threatening murmur.

The two women had met behind the house, and now were walking slowly together towards the creek where all the canoes were moored.  Arrived at the fringe of bushes they stopped by a common impulse, and Mrs. Almayer, laying her hand on her daughter’s arm, tried in vain to look close into the girl’s averted face.  When she attempted to speak her first words were lost in a stifled sob that sounded strangely coming from that woman who, of all human passions, seemed to know only those of anger and hate.

“You are going away to be a great Ranee,” she said at last, in a voice that was steady enough now, “and if you be wise you shall have much power that will endure many days, and even last into your old age.  What have I been?  A slave all my life, and I have cooked rice for a man who had no courage and no wisdom.  Hai!  I! even I, was given in gift by a chief and a warrior to a man that was neither.  Hai!  Hai!”

She wailed to herself softly, lamenting the lost possibilities of murder and mischief that could have fallen to her lot had she been mated with a congenial spirit.  Nina bent down over Mrs. Almayer’s slight form and scanned attentively, under the stars that had rushed out on the black sky and now hung breathless over that strange parting, her mother’s shrivelled features, and looked close into the sunken eyes that could see into her own dark future by the light of a long and a painful experience.  Again she felt herself fascinated, as of old, by her mother’s exalted mood and by the oracular certainty of expression which, together with her fits of violence, had contributed not a little to the reputation for witchcraft she enjoyed in the settlement.

* * * * *

“I was a slave, and you shall be a queen,” went on Mrs. Almayer, looking straight before her; “but remember men’s strength and their weakness.  Tremble before his anger, so that he may see your fear in the light of day; but in your heart you may laugh, for after sunset he is your slave.”

“A slave!  He!  The master of life!  You do not know him, mother.”

Mrs. Almayer condescended to laugh contemptuously.

“You speak like a fool of a white woman,” she exclaimed.  “What do you know of men’s anger and of men’s love?  Have you watched the sleep of men weary of dealing death?  Have you felt about you the strong arm that could drive a kriss deep into a beating heart?  Yah! you are a white woman, and ought to pray to a woman-god!”

“Why do you say this?  I have listened to your words so long that I have forgotten my old life.  If I was white would I stand here, ready to go?  Mother, I shall return to the house and look once more at my father’s face.”

“No!” said Mrs. Almayer, violently.  “No, he sleeps now the sleep of gin; and if you went back he might awake and see you.  No, he shall never see you.  When the terrible old man took you away from me when you were little, you remember — ”

“It was such a long time ago,” murmured Nina.

“I remember,” went on Mrs. Almayer, fiercely.  “I wanted to look at your face again.  He said no!  I heard you cry and jumped into the river.  You were his daughter then; you are my daughter now.  Never shall you go back to that house; you shall never cross this courtyard again.  No! no!”

Her voice rose almost to a shout.  On the other side of the creek there was a rustle in the long grass.  The two women heard it, and listened for a while in startled silence.  “I shall go,” said Nina, in a cautious but intense whisper.  “What is your hate or your revenge to me?”

She moved towards the house, Mrs. Almayer clinging to her and trying to pull her back.

“Stop, you shall not go!” she gasped.

Nina pushed away her mother impatiently and gathered up her skirts for a quick run, but Mrs. Almayer ran forward and turned round, facing her daughter with outstretched arms.

“If you move another step,” she exclaimed, breathing quickly, “I shall cry out.  Do you see those lights in the big house?  There sit two white men, angry because they cannot have the blood of the man you love.  And in those dark houses,” she continued, more calmly as she pointed towards the settlement, “my voice could wake up men that would lead the Orang Blanda soldiers to him who is waiting — for you.”

She could not see her daughter’s face, but the white figure before her stood silent and irresolute in the darkness.  Mrs. Almayer pursued her advantage.

“Give up your old life!  Forget!” she said in entreating tones.  “Forget that you ever looked at a white face; forget their words; forget their thoughts.  They speak lies.  And they think lies because they despise us that are better than they are, but not so strong.  Forget their friendship and their contempt; forget their many gods.  Girl, why do you want to remember the past when there is a warrior and a chief ready to give many lives — his own life — for one of your smiles?”

While she spoke she pushed gently her daughter towards the canoes, hiding her own fear, anxiety, and doubt under the flood of passionate words that left Nina no time to think and no opportunity to protest, even if she had wished it.  But she did not wish it now.  At the bottom of that passing desire to look again at her father’s face there was no strong affection.  She felt no scruples and no remorse at leaving suddenly that man whose sentiment towards herself she could not understand, she could not even see.  There was only an instinctive clinging to old life, to old habits, to old faces; that fear of finality which lurks in every human breast and prevents so many heroisms and so many crimes.  For years she had stood between her mother and her father, the one so strong in her weakness, the other so weak where he could have been strong.  Between those two beings so dissimilar, so antagonistic, she stood with mute heart wondering and angry at the fact of her own existence.  It seemed so unreasonable, so humiliating to be flung there in that settlement and to see the days rush by into the past, without a hope, a desire, or an aim that would justify the life she had to endure in ever-growing weariness.  She had little belief and no sympathy for her father’s dreams; but the savage ravings of her mother chanced to strike a responsive chord, deep down somewhere in her despairing heart; and she dreamed dreams of her own with the persistent absorption of a captive thinking of liberty within the walls of his prison cell.  With the coming of Dain she found the road to freedom by obeying the voice of the new-born impulses, and with surprised joy she thought she could read in his eyes the answer to all the questionings of her heart.  She understood now the reason and the aim of life; and in the triumphant unveiling of that mystery she threw away disdainfully her past with its sad thoughts, its bitter feelings, and its faint affections, now withered and dead in contact with her fierce passion.

Mrs. Almayer unmoored Nina’s own canoe and, straightening herself painfully, stood, painter in hand, looking at her daughter.

“Quick,” she said; “get away before the moon rises, while the river is dark.  I am afraid of Abdulla’s slaves.  The wretches prowl in the night often, and might see and follow you.  There are two paddles in the canoe.”

Nina approached her mother and hesitatingly touched lightly with her lips the wrinkled forehead.  Mrs. Almayer snorted contemptuously in protest against that tenderness which she, nevertheless, feared could be contagious.

“Shall I ever see you again, mother?” murmured Nina.

“No,” said Mrs. Almayer, after a short silence.  “Why should you return here where it is my fate to die?  You will live far away in splendour and might.  When I hear of white men driven from the islands, then I shall know that you are alive, and that you remember my words.”

“I shall always remember,” returned Nina, earnestly; “but where is my power, and what can I do?”

“Do not let him look too long in your eyes, nor lay his head on your knees without reminding him that men should fight before they rest.  And if he lingers, give him his kriss yourself and bid him go, as the wife of a mighty prince should do when the enemies are near.  Let him slay the white men that come to us to trade, with prayers on their lips and loaded guns in their hands.  Ah!” — she ended with a sigh — ”they are on every sea, and on every shore; and they are very many!”

She swung the bow of the canoe towards the river, but did not let go the gunwale, keeping her hand on it in irresolute thoughtfulness.

Nina put the point of the paddle against the bank, ready to shove off into the stream.

“What is it, mother?” she asked, in a low voice.  “Do you hear anything?”

“No,” said Mrs. Almayer, absently.  “Listen, Nina,” she continued, abruptly, after a slight pause, “in after years there will be other women — ”

A stifled cry in the boat interrupted her, and the paddle rattled in the canoe as it slipped from Nina’s hands, which she put out in a protesting gesture.  Mrs. Almayer fell on her knees on the bank and leaned over the gunwale so as to bring her own face close to her daughter’s.

“There will be other women,” she repeated firmly; “I tell you that, because you are half white, and may forget that he is a great chief, and that such things must be.  Hide your anger, and do not let him see on your face the pain that will eat your heart.  Meet him with joy in your eyes and wisdom on your lips, for to you he will turn in sadness or in doubt.  As long as he looks upon many women your power will last, but should there be one, one only with whom he seems to forget you, then — ”

“I could not live,” exclaimed Nina, covering her face with both her hands.  “Do not speak so, mother; it could not be.”

“Then,” went on Mrs. Almayer, steadily, “to that woman, Nina, show no mercy.”

She moved the canoe down towards the stream by the gunwale, and gripped it with both her hands, the bow pointing into the river.

“Are you crying?” she asked sternly of her daughter, who sat still with covered face.  “Arise, and take your paddle, for he has waited long enough.  And remember, Nina, no mercy; and if you must strike, strike with a steady hand.”

She put out all her strength, and swinging her body over the water, shot the light craft far into the stream.  When she recovered herself from the effort she tried vainly to catch a glimpse of the canoe that seemed to have dissolved suddenly into the white mist trailing over the heated waters of the Pantai.  After listening for a while intently on her knees, Mrs. Almayer rose with a deep sigh, while two tears wandered slowly down her withered cheeks.  She wiped them off quickly with a wisp of her grey hair as if ashamed of herself, but could not stifle another loud sigh, for her heart was heavy and she suffered much, being unused to tender emotions.  This time she fancied she had heard a faint noise, like the echo of her own sigh, and she stopped, straining her ears to catch the slightest sound, and peering apprehensively towards the bushes near her.