storms and great floods making the river
almost impossible of ascent for native canoes.

Almayer, strolling along the muddy beach between his houses, watched
uneasily the river rising inch by inch, creeping slowly nearer to the
boats, now ready and hauled up in a row under the cover of dripping
Kajang-mats. Fortune seemed to elude his grasp, and in his weary tramp
backwards and forwards under the steady rain falling from the lowering
sky, a sort of despairing indifference took possession of him. What did
it matter? It was just his luck! Those two infernal savages, Lakamba
and Dain, induced him, with their promises of help, to spend his last
dollar in the fitting out of boats, and now one of them was gone
somewhere, and the other shut up in his stockade would give no sign of
life. No, not even the scoundrelly Babalatchi, thought Almayer, would
show his face near him, now they had sold him all the rice, brass gongs,
and cloth necessary for his expedition. They had his very last coin, and
did not care whether he went or stayed. And with a gesture of abandoned
discouragement Almayer would climb up slowly to the verandah of his new
house to get out of the rain, and leaning on the front rail with his head
sunk between his shoulders he would abandon himself to the current of
bitter thoughts, oblivious of the flight of time and the pangs of hunger,
deaf to the shrill cries of his wife calling him to the evening meal.
When, roused from his sad meditations by the first roll of the evening
thunderstorm, he stumbled slowly towards the glimmering light of his old
house, his half-dead hope made his ears preternaturally acute to any
sound on the river. Several nights in succession he had heard the splash
of paddles and had seen the indistinct form of a boat, but when hailing
the shadowy apparition, his heart bounding with sudden hope of hearing
Dain's voice, he was disappointed each time by the sulky answer conveying
to him the intelligence that the Arabs were on the river, bound on a
visit to the home-staying Lakamba. This caused him many sleepless
nights, spent in speculating upon the kind of villainy those estimable
personages were hatching now. At last, when all hope seemed dead, he was
overjoyed on hearing Dain's voice; but Dain also appeared very anxious to
see Lakamba, and Almayer felt uneasy owing to a deep and ineradicable
distrust as to that ruler's disposition towards himself. Still, Dain had
returned at last. Ev