ed into her eyes, Nina, although
averting her face, felt as if this bold-looking being who spoke burning
words into her willing ear was the embodiment of her fate, the creature
of her dreams--reckless, ferocious, ready with flashing kriss for his
enemies, and with passionate embrace for his beloved--the ideal Malay
chief of her mother's tradition.

She recognised with a thrill of delicious fear the mysterious
consciousness of her identity with that being. Listening to his words,
it seemed to her she was born only then to a knowledge of a new
existence, that her life was complete only when near him, and she
abandoned herself to a feeling of dreamy happiness, while with
half-veiled face and in silence--as became a Malay girl--she listened to
Dain's words giving up to her the whole treasure of love and passion his
nature was capable of with all the unrestrained enthusiasm of a man
totally untrammelled by any influence of civilised self-discipline.

And they used to pass many a delicious and fast fleeting hour under the
mango trees behind the friendly curtain of bushes till Mrs. Almayer's
shrill voice gave the signal of unwilling separation. Mrs. Almayer had
undertaken the easy task of watching her husband lest he should interrupt
the smooth course of her daughter's love affair, in which she took a
great and benignant interest. She was happy and proud to see Dain's
infatuation, believing him to be a great and powerful chief, and she
found also a gratification of her mercenary instincts in Dain's
open-handed generosity.

On the eve of the day when Babalatchi's suspicions were confirmed by
ocular demonstration, Dain and Nina had remained longer than usual in
their shady retreat. Only Almayer's heavy step on the verandah and his
querulous clamour for food decided Mrs. Almayer to lift a warning cry.
Maroola leaped lightly over the low bamboo fence, and made his way
stealthily through the banana plantation down to the muddy shore of the
back creek, while Nina walked slowly towards the house to minister to her
father's wants, as was her wont every evening. Almayer felt happy enough
that evening; the preparations were nearly completed; to-morrow he would
launch his boats. In his mind's eye he saw the rich prize in his grasp;
and, with tin spoon in his hand, he was forgetting the plateful of rice
before him in the fanciful arrangement of some splendid banquet to take
place on his arrival in Amsterdam. Nina, reclining in th