certain sense
of conferring a favour upon Lakamba and the anxious statesman, but he met
the proposal of going at once with a decided no, looking Babalatchi
meaningly in the eye. The statesman sighed as a man accepting the
inevitable would do, and pointed silently towards the other bank of the
river. Dain bent his head slowly.

"Yes, I am going there," he said.

"Before the day comes?" asked Babalatchi.

"I am going there now," answered Dain, decisively. "The Orang Blanda
will not be here before to-morrow night, perhaps, and I must tell Almayer
of our arrangements."

"No, Tuan. No; say nothing," protested Babalatchi. "I will go over
myself at sunrise and let him know."

"I will see," said Dain, preparing to go.

The thunderstorm was recommencing outside, the heavy clouds hanging low
overhead now.

There was a constant rumble of distant thunder punctuated by the nearer
sharp crashes, and in the continuous play of blue lightning the woods and
the river showed fitfully, with all the elusive distinctness of detail
characteristic of such a scene. Outside the door of the Rajah's house
Dain and Babalatchi stood on the shaking verandah as if dazed and stunned
by the violence of the storm. They stood there amongst the cowering
forms of the Rajah's slaves and retainers seeking shelter from the rain,
and Dain called aloud to his boatmen, who responded with an unanimous
"Ada! Tuan!" while they looked uneasily at the river.

"This is a great flood!" shouted Babalatchi into Dain's ear. "The river
is very angry. Look! Look at the drifting logs! Can you go?"

Dain glanced doubtfully on the livid expanse of seething water bounded
far away on the other side by the narrow black line of the forests.
Suddenly, in a vivid white flash, the low point of land with the bending
trees on it and Almayer's house, leaped into view, flickered and
disappeared. Dain pushed Babalatchi aside and ran down to the water-gate
followed by his shivering boatmen.

Babalatchi backed slowly in and closed the door, then turned round and
looked silently upon Lakamba. The Rajah sat still, glaring stonily upon
the table, and Babalatchi gazed curiously at the perplexed mood of the
man he had served so many years through good and evil fortune. No doubt
the one-eyed statesman felt within his savage and much sophisticated
breast the unwonted feelings of sympathy with, and perhaps even pity for,
the man he called his master. From the safe positi