terdam,
that earthly paradise of his dreams, where, made king amongst men by old
Lingard's money, he would pass the evening of his days in inexpressible
splendour. As to the other side of the picture--the companionship for
life of a Malay girl, that legacy of a boatful of pirates--there was only
within him a confused consciousness of shame that he a white man--Still,
a convent education of four years!--and then she may mercifully die. He
was always lucky, and money is powerful! Go through it. Why not? He
had a vague idea of shutting her up somewhere, anywhere, out of his
gorgeous future. Easy enough to dispose of a Malay woman, a slave, after
all, to his Eastern mind, convent or no convent, ceremony or no ceremony.

He lifted his head and confronted the anxious yet irate seaman.

"I--of course--anything you wish, Captain Lingard."

"Call me father, my boy. She does," said the mollified old adventurer.
"Damme, though, if I didn't think you were going to refuse. Mind you,
Kaspar, I always get my way, so it would have been no use. But you are
no fool."

He remembered well that time--the look, the accent, the words, the effect
they produced on him, his very surroundings. He remembered the narrow
slanting deck of the brig, the silent sleeping coast, the smooth black
surface of the sea with a great bar of gold laid on it by the rising
moon. He remembered it all, and he remembered his feelings of mad
exultation at the thought of that fortune thrown into his hands. He was
no fool then, and he was no fool now. Circumstances had been against
him; the fortune was gone, but hope remained.

He shivered in the night air, and suddenly became aware of the intense
darkness which, on the sun's departure, had closed in upon the river,
blotting out the outlines of the opposite shore. Only the fire of dry
branches lit outside the stockade of the Rajah's compound called fitfully
into view the ragged trunks of the surrounding trees, putting a stain of
glowing red half-way across the river where the drifting logs were
hurrying towards the sea through the impenetrable gloom. He had a hazy
recollection of having been called some time during the evening by his
wife. To his dinner probably. But a man busy contemplating the wreckage
of his past in the dawn of new hopes cannot be hungry whenever his rice
is ready. Time he went home, though; it was getting late.

He stepped cautiously on the loose planks towards the ladder. A