brass
gongs, rifles and gunpowder. His brig _Flash_, which he commanded
himself, would on those occasions disappear quietly during the night from
the roadstead while his companions were sleeping off the effects of the
midnight carouse, Lingard seeing them drunk under the table before going
on board, himself unaffected by any amount of liquor. Many tried to
follow him and find that land of plenty for gutta-percha and rattans,
pearl shells and birds' nests, wax and gum-dammar, but the little _Flash_
could outsail every craft in those seas. A few of them came to grief on
hidden sandbanks and coral reefs, losing their all and barely escaping
with life from the cruel grip of this sunny and smiling sea; others got
discouraged; and for many years the green and peaceful-looking islands
guarding the entrances to the promised land kept their secret with all
the merciless serenity of tropical nature. And so Lingard came and went
on his secret or open expeditions, becoming a hero in Almayer's eyes by
the boldness and enormous profits of his ventures, seeming to Almayer a
very great man indeed as he saw him marching up the warehouse, grunting a
"how are you?" to Vinck, or greeting Hudig, the Master, with a boisterous
"Hallo, old pirate! Alive yet?" as a preliminary to transacting business
behind the little green door. Often of an evening, in the silence of the
then deserted warehouse, Almayer putting away his papers before driving
home with Mr. Vinck, in whose household he lived, would pause listening
to the noise of a hot discussion in the private office, would hear the
deep and monotonous growl of the Master, and the roared-out interruptions
of Lingard--two mastiffs fighting over a marrowy bone. But to Almayer's
ears it sounded like a quarrel of Titans--a battle of the gods.

After a year or so Lingard, having been brought often in contact with
Almayer in the course of business, took a sudden and, to the onlookers, a
rather inexplicable fancy to the young man. He sang his praises, late at
night, over a convivial glass to his cronies in the Sunda Hotel, and one
fine morning electrified Vinck by declaring that he must have "that young
fellow for a supercargo. Kind of captain's clerk. Do all my
quill-driving for me." Hudig consented. Almayer, with youth's natural
craving for change, was nothing loth, and packing his few belongings,
started in the _Flash_ on one of those long cruises when the old seaman
was wont to visit a