Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (20 page)

“And you saw her go?” Almayer’s voice sounded harshly above her head.

“Did I not tell you?” she sobbed, trying to wriggle gently out from under his grip.  “Did I not tell you that I saw the witchwoman push the canoe?  I lay hidden in the grass and heard all the words.  She that we used to call the white Mem wanted to return to look at your face, but the witchwoman forbade her, and — ”

She sank lower yet on her elbow, turning half round under the downward push of the heavy hand, her face lifted up to him with spiteful eyes.

“And she obeyed,” she shouted out in a half-laugh, half-cry of pain.  “Let me go, Tuan.  Why are you angry with me?  Hasten, or you shall be too late to show your anger to the deceitful woman.”

Almayer dragged her up to her feet and looked close into her face while she struggled, turning her head away from his wild stare.

“Who sent you here to torment me?” he asked, violently.  “I do not believe you.  You lie.”

He straightened his arm suddenly and flung her across the verandah towards the doorway, where she lay immobile and silent, as if she had left her life in his grasp, a dark heap, without a sound or a stir.

“Oh!  Nina!” whispered Almayer, in a voice in which reproach and love spoke together in pained tenderness.  “Oh!  Nina!  I do not believe.”

A light draught from the river ran over the courtyard in a wave of bowing grass and, entering the verandah, touched Almayer’s forehead with its cool breath, in a caress of infinite pity.  The curtain in the women’s doorway blew out and instantly collapsed with startling helplessness.  He stared at the fluttering stuff.

“Nina!” cried Almayer.  “Where are you, Nina?”

The wind passed out of the empty house in a tremulous sigh, and all was still.

Almayer hid his face in his hands as if to shut out a loathsome sight.  When, hearing a slight rustle, he uncovered his eyes, the dark heap by the door was gone.

CHAPTER XI.

In the middle of a shadowless square of moonlight, shining on a smooth and level expanse of young rice-shoots, a little shelter-hut perched on high posts, the pile of brushwood near by and the glowing embers of a fire with a man stretched before it, seemed very small and as if lost in the pale green iridescence reflected from the ground.  On three sides of the clearing, appearing very far away in the deceptive light, the big trees of the forest, lashed together with manifold bonds by a mass of tangled creepers, looked down at the growing young life at their feet with the sombre resignation of giants that had lost faith in their strength.  And in the midst of them the merciless creepers clung to the big trunks in cable-like coils, leaped from tree to tree, hung in thorny festoons from the lower boughs, and, sending slender tendrils on high to seek out the smallest branches, carried death to their victims in an exulting riot of silent destruction.

On the fourth side, following the curve of the bank of that branch of the Pantai that formed the only access to the clearing, ran a black line of young trees, bushes, and thick second growth, unbroken save for a small gap chopped out in one place.  At that gap began the narrow footpath leading from the water’s edge to the grass-built shelter used by the night watchers when the ripening crop had to be protected from the wild pigs.  The pathway ended at the foot of the piles on which the hut was built, in a circular space covered with ashes and bits of burnt wood.  In the middle of that space, by the dim fire, lay Dain.

He turned over on his side with an impatient sigh, and, pillowing his head on his bent arm, lay quietly with his face to the dying fire.  The glowing embers shone redly in a small circle, throwing a gleam into his wide-open eyes, and at every deep breath the fine white ash of bygone fires rose in a light cloud before his parted lips, and danced away from the warm glow into the moonbeams pouring down upon Bulangi’s clearing.  His body was weary with the exertion of the past few days, his mind more weary still with the strain of solitary waiting for his fate.  Never before had he felt so helpless.  He had heard the report of the gun fired on board the launch, and he knew that his life was in untrustworthy hands, and that his enemies were very near.  During the slow hours of the afternoon he roamed about on the edge of the forest, or, hiding in the bushes, watched the creek with unquiet eyes for some sign of danger.  He feared not death, yet he desired ardently to live, for life to him was Nina.  She had promised to come, to follow him, to share his danger and his splendour.  But with her by his side he cared not for danger, and without her there could be no splendour and no joy in existence.

Crouching in his shady hiding-place, he closed his eyes, trying to evoke the gracious and charming image of the white figure that for him was the beginning and the end of life.  With eyes shut tight, his teeth hard set, he tried in a great effort of passionate will to keep his hold on that vision of supreme delight.  In vain!  His heart grew heavy as the figure of Nina faded away to be replaced by another vision this time — a vision of armed men, of angry faces, of glittering arms — and he seemed to hear the hum of excited and triumphant voices as they discovered him in his hiding-place.  Startled by the vividness of his fancy, he would open his eyes, and, leaping out into the sunlight, resume his aimless wanderings around the clearing.  As he skirted in his weary march the edge of the forest he glanced now and then into its dark shade, so enticing in its deceptive appearance of coolness, so repellent with its unrelieved gloom, where lay, entombed and rotting, countless generations of trees, and where their successors stood as if mourning, in dark green foliage, immense and helpless, awaiting their turn.  Only the parasites seemed to live there in a sinuous rush upwards into the air and sunshine, feeding on the dead and the dying alike, and crowning their victims with pink and blue flowers that gleamed amongst the boughs, incongruous and cruel, like a strident and mocking note in the solemn harmony of the doomed trees.

A man could hide there, thought Dain, as he approached a place where the creepers had been torn and hacked into an archway that might have been the beginning of a path.  As he bent down to look through he heard angry grunting, and a sounder of wild pig crashed away in the undergrowth.  An acrid smell of damp earth and of decaying leaves took him by the throat, and he drew back with a scared face, as if he had been touched by the breath of Death itself.  The very air seemed dead in there — heavy and stagnating, poisoned with the corruption of countless ages.  He went on, staggering on his way, urged by the nervous restlessness that made him feel tired yet caused him to loathe the very idea of immobility and repose.  Was he a wild man to hide in the woods and perhaps be killed there — in the darkness — where there was no room to breathe?  He would wait for his enemies in the sunlight, where he could see the sky and feel the breeze.  He knew how a Malay chief should die.  The sombre and desperate fury, that peculiar inheritance of his race, took possession of him, and he glared savagely across the clearing towards the gap in the bushes by the riverside.  They would come from there.  In imagination he saw them now.  He saw the bearded faces and the white jackets of the officers, the light on the levelled barrels of the rifles.  What is the bravery of the greatest warrior before the firearms in the hand of a slave?  He would walk toward them with a smiling face, with his hands held out in a sign of submission till he was very near them.  He would speak friendly words — come nearer yet — yet nearer — so near that they could touch him with their hands and stretch them out to make him a captive.  That would be the time: with a shout and a leap he would be in the midst of them, kriss in hand, killing, killing, killing, and would die with the shouts of his enemies in his ears, their warm blood spurting before his eyes.

Carried away by his excitement, he snatched the kriss hidden in his sarong, and, drawing a long breath, rushed forward, struck at the empty air, and fell on his face.  He lay as if stunned in the sudden reaction from his exaltation, thinking that, even if he died thus gloriously, it would have to be before he saw Nina.  Better so.  If he saw her again he felt that death would be too terrible.  With horror he, the descendant of Rajahs and of conquerors, had to face the doubt of his own bravery.  His desire of life tormented him in a paroxysm of agonising remorse.  He had not the courage to stir a limb.  He had lost faith in himself, and there was nothing else in him of what makes a man.  The suffering remained, for it is ordered that it should abide in the human body even to the last breath, and fear remained.  Dimly he could look into the depths of his passionate love, see its strength and its weakness, and felt afraid.

The sun went down slowly.  The shadow of the western forest marched over the clearing, covered the man’s scorched shoulders with its cool mantle, and went on hurriedly to mingle with the shadows of other forests on the eastern side.  The sun lingered for a while amongst the light tracery of the higher branches, as if in friendly reluctance to abandon the body stretched in the green paddy-field.  Then Dain, revived by the cool of the evening breeze, sat up and stared round him.  As he did so the sun dipped sharply, as if ashamed of being detected in a sympathising attitude, and the clearing, which during the day was all light, became suddenly all darkness, where the fire gleamed like an eye.  Dain walked slowly towards the creek, and, divesting himself of his torn sarong, his only garment, entered the water cautiously.  He had had nothing to eat that day, and had not dared show himself in daylight by the water-side to drink.  Now, as he swam silently, he swallowed a few mouthfuls of water that lapped about his lips.  This did him good, and he walked with greater confidence in himself and others as he returned towards the fire.  Had he been betrayed by Lakamba all would have been over by this.  He made up a big blaze, and while it lasted dried himself, and then lay down by the embers.  He could not sleep, but he felt a great numbness in all his limbs.  His restlessness was gone, and he was content to lay still, measuring the time by watching the stars that rose in endless succession above the forests, while the slight puffs of wind under the cloudless sky seemed to fan their twinkle into a greater brightness.  Dreamily he assured himself over and over again that she would come, till the certitude crept into his heart and filled him with a great peace.  Yes, when the next day broke, they would be together on the great blue sea that was like life — away from the forests that were like death.  He murmured the name of Nina into the silent space with a tender smile: this seemed to break the spell of stillness, and far away by the creek a frog croaked loudly as if in answer.  A chorus of loud roars and plaintive calls rose from the mud along the line of bushes.  He laughed heartily; doubtless it was their love-song.  He felt affectionate towards the frogs and listened, pleased with the noisy life near him.

When the moon peeped above the trees he felt the old impatience and the old restlessness steal over him.  Why was she so late?  True, it was a long way to come with a single paddle.  With what skill and what endurance could those small hands manage a heavy paddle!  It was very wonderful — such small hands, such soft little palms that knew how to touch his cheek with a feel lighter than the fanning of a butterfly’s wing.  Wonderful!  He lost himself lovingly in the contemplation of this tremendous mystery, and when he looked at the moon again it had risen a hand’s breadth above the trees.  Would she come?  He forced himself to lay still, overcoming the impulse to rise and rush round the clearing again.  He turned this way and that; at last, quivering with the effort, he lay on his back, and saw her face among the stars looking down on him.

The croaking of frogs suddenly ceased.  With the watchfulness of a hunted man Dain sat up, listening anxiously, and heard several splashes in the water as the frogs took rapid headers into the creek.  He knew that they had been alarmed by something, and stood up suspicious and attentive.  A slight grating noise, then the dry sound as of two pieces of wood struck against each other.  Somebody was about to land!  He took up an armful of brushwood, and, without taking his eyes from the path, held it over the embers of his fire.  He waited, undecided, and saw something gleam amongst the bushes; then a white figure came out of the shadows and seemed to float towards him in the pale light.  His heart gave a great leap and stood still, then went on shaking his frame in furious beats.  He dropped the brushwood upon the glowing coals, and had an impression of shouting her name — of rushing to meet her; yet he emitted no sound, he stirred not an inch, but he stood silent and motionless like chiselled bronze under the moonlight that streamed over his naked shoulders.  As he stood still, fighting with his breath, as if bereft of his senses by the intensity of his delight, she walked up to him with quick, resolute steps, and, with the appearance of one about to leap from a dangerous height, threw both her arms round his neck with a sudden gesture.  A small blue gleam crept amongst the dry branches, and the crackling of reviving fire was the only sound as they faced each other in the speechless emotion of that meeting; then the dry fuel caught at once, and a bright hot flame shot upwards in a blaze as high as their heads, and in its light they saw each other’s eyes.

Neither of them spoke.  He was regaining his senses in a slight tremor that ran upwards along his rigid body and hung about his trembling lips.  She drew back her head and fastened her eyes on his in one of those long looks that are a woman’s most terrible weapon; a look that is more stirring than the closest touch, and more dangerous than the thrust of a dagger, because it also whips the soul out of the body, but leaves the body alive and helpless, to be swayed here and there by the capricious tempests of passion and desire; a look that enwraps the whole body, and that penetrates into the innermost recesses of the being, bringing terrible defeat in the delirious uplifting of accomplished conquest.  It has the same meaning for the man of the forests and the sea as for the man threading the paths of the more dangerous wilderness of houses and streets.  Men that had felt in their breasts the awful exultation such a look awakens become mere things of to-day — which is paradise; forget yesterday — which was suffering; care not for to-morrow — which may be perdition.  They wish to live under that look for ever.  It is the look of woman’s surrender.